need help: ae86 diff - halfshaft problem

[cj]

I have the following problem:



I brought my car to a shop for raplacing rear shocks. When we lifted the car up, we noticed a problem right rear wheel doesn't spin.

My diff is 100% locked so i thought the halfshaft might be broken because of the excessive torgue when turning small radiuses (not drifting). I took out the halfshaft and notice that part of it has been worn out. What seems strange is that the worn out part is at the very end i covers only a fraction of the halfshaft (as seen on the pics). Now i'm planning to take apart the diff and see if anything's wrong.

I do have a spare halfshaft, but i'm not sure if that will solve my problem. Does anyone know how deep should the shaft go into the diff? Any further advice?

[Ivan141]

I suggest you have a closer look at your diff...might be something broken in it.. Dont know how deep those shafts are supposed to go into it, but I would hope a lot more than those few mm's..

[cj]

Same thoughts Another reason is to have the halfshaft moved out somehow, but I guess this is not the case, since it was not loose when I took it out.

[Jan Pedersen]

Your right halfshaft might be zenki... If your rear end is zenki you can drive normaly without any problem, but under heavy use it will spin...

[cj]

My car is a zenki model. Regarding the picture with 2 halfshafts - the one on the left is the damaged and the one on the right is the replacement.

[max_ae86]

How did you lock your diff 100%? Do you have some picturs?

[Mux213]

max,

diff 100% locked usually means welding it so there is no differential working anymore. A bit of a shame to do with an LSD, best to just use an open diff and weld the internal gears.

Sucks when turning corners but helps with drifting. For some stupid reason to me it feels like cheating though..

[cj]

max_ae86 Wrote:How did you lock your diff 100%? Do you have some picturs?

I did not do it on purpose. I brought it to a shop for rebuilding, but it came out this way. I had it reassembled again, but could not change the 100% lock up. Since it is not my daily driver i decided to leave it this way - which is excellent for drifting

Now, i guess this problem is catching up...

I took out the diff today. What i could notice is that the right spider wheel has been broken:


PS: sorry for the Bulgarian language, it points where the cut has emerged.

I have some replacement diff parts, but do not have a spare right spider wheel. This is a pic of the left one:





Judging by the left one, here is where I suppose the broken spot to be:



Now the solution of my prob comes to replacing this right spider wheel. I openned the ae86 parts catalog and noticed that the left and right spider wheels have the same part number - bingo! - they are the same!



Then i did a little experiment with my extra diff - i put the left spider wheel at the place of the right one and noticed 1-2mm space between the wheel and the outer side of the diff. Now I have to figure out where this problem comes from.

I will disassemble carefully my diff with the broken spider wheel and will examine how parts fit between each other. Hopefully will have some answears soon.

PS: even fixind the spider wheel won't change the fact that i'm only guessing why it broke down. Did it break only because of the 100% lock? Hm...

[Ivan141]

Maybe you lost one of the washers that need to go in the diff...

[cj]

I really might have... that's why i told the mechanics to take my present diff apart step by step and to look for gaps.