3rd member talk (ring&pinion setup etc.)

[Ivan141]

Guys,

I would like to get a little discussion going on this subject. 3rd member (the "pumpkin" that contains the diff) problems have been tormenting many of us over here in europe, and since we dont have a chance of finding ae86's at the junkyards, we usually need to fix stuff with new parts.
Prices are astronomical for almost everything in&around the differential so it would be a good idea to list the best solutions to problems.

So if we can collect experiences/know-how in this thread we might be able to put a good how-to for the aeu86 website together.

I'll start off with my own experiences:

My diff went bad after I practiced a bit of drifting (about 10 minutes worth) on dry asfalt 1,5 years ago. I noticed the LSD wasnt doing much of anything anymore (probably worn or overheated) and stopped playing around. I let the car sit for a few minutes for things to cool down, then when I drove off, a horrible racket came from the rearend. Only when I press the throttle though, so it's most likely the ring gear.
I have been driving around with mux's old 3rd member ever since, which also whines like crazy, but it was better than mine.

Upon inspection of the ring and pinion gears of my old diff they actually dont look too worn.
From what little information there is out there, the most likely cause of failure in these 3rd members is that the collapsible spacer (crush collar) gets crushed too far when you abuse the car, which causes the piniongear to come out off alignment. Some racing series in the US (dwarfcars) use the same toyota rearends, and some have switched to solid pinion spacers with shims to adjust the pinion. This is common practice among offroad 4x4 drivers as well.
I know for a fact that TRD made these spacers for racing ae86's, so they might be available still.. maybe SYM or some of the other parts guys can help us find these.
One of the dwarfcar parts shops also makes these themselves, available for around 75 dollars with shims in the US.

As far as the availability of the other parts (r&p sets/bearings/diff rebuild parts) is concerned, that info is largely available in older threads so we could compile that into the how-to/this thread sometime too.

At the moment I'm most interested in the whole adjustment procedure though, I have 2, maybe even 3 differentials lying around at home that I can rebuild, having them all done professionally is out of the question cost-wise.

I know this is a bit off a rant, but please those of you with usefull experiences or good questions feel free to chip in.