CrayZ

I agree, I'm not a fan of the floating axle design. I think the combination of spacers and pinning the star as far away from the center of the axle will fix the problem.

What about the spacers I put in? Check this video out. This is with the spacers in. http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr206/texastrini1986/AEA18D87-B935-46D1-B249-1B35A3B21C8A-8645-00000A6E77836F56.mp4 I think newzed is right. I think when the star moves towards the center of the axle it is "shortening" the axle

Ive been thinking really hard about this and I'm almost positive this is what happened. Thanks for the observation

I e been thinking really hard about this and I'm almost positive this is what happened. Thanks for the observation

Hmmm it sure is.. Looks like the are going with a double clip setup as well.. I'm pretty confident that stoping the star from walking on the axle and my beafed up cir clips will do the job.

Weird thing is that the cir clip keeps failing.. even after my proper measurements. It should be working fine with the new spacers. Ill check with john about the lengths. As far as the diff being lower than yours i sure would like to know why.. The big aluminum mount that holds the rear of the diff is an off the shelf unit. It should put the diff in only one spot.. also im not sure what you mean by if the suspension is "plum"

Oh yeah, check this out! I had some scrap cups lying around so i figured.. why not bet the bearings dont round these edges off! Im not done with them yet. I couldnt get the mig to function properly so the weld are shit for now. I still havent decided if i want to run them.. BUT i probably will.

Trust me the last thing i want to do is scrap all this stuff.. Touching on a couple issues first id like to bring to light the "star" that slides over the axle. Today when i was pulling apart a q45 axle i noticed that the axle had a shelf on it that pinned the star up against the snap ring preventing the star from moving AT ALL.. Now with that said, here is my axle... There is nothing stopping the star from wedging itself down the shaft, Which it has done already.. I didnt pay much attention to it becuase i thought it was suppose to float on the ends of the axle. Now with that said i am machining a groove just below where the star sits when it is pressed up against the existing snap ring. I will be filling that groove with another snap ring to lock the star in place at the furthest possible position away from the center of the axle. I agree that there is something not right about the angles of the shafts.. I would love to address this and any suspension problems that might be present. I tried my best to understand what you where asking me to measure and this is what i came up with. I measured from that shelf that you can clearly see all the way to the bottom of the "strut housing" im going to call it. I pretty much measured the "tube" and came up with 12 & 5/8" the kicker is that the passenger side measures 12 & 3/8".......... NOT happy abou that. Now in case there was any confusion I also took this measurement. driver measured 10.5" passenger measured slightly over 10 & 1/8" I hope this is what you were looking for. If not just give it to me in retard terms i wont be odfended

lol! the only thing that is bugging me is that i will have to change EVERYTHING! mustache bar, mounting hardware etc. (at least i think) Im not sure what stub axles i have? not sure how to tell

One more thing fellas, ive been reading that the short nose R200 and R230 are the same lengths. Could i use all of my exsiting mounting hardware driveshaft, yada yada for a short nose 200? that would be great becuase i dont feel like starting over.. If i could pull the r230 out and bolt a short nose r200 in its place that would be awesome. IF this is possible is there a specific short nose r200 i should look for?

Thats comforting to know becuase i have had it with with floating axles..

so your saying that you modified the companion flanges yourself instead of buying them from MM? and are you also saying that you did not need custom axles, you just used the one from a pathfinder and swapped the driver for passenger on the zx-t's?

Ha, I'm going to weld in the "upgraded" c clips and see what happens. If not, I found a clutch type long nose 200 with zx-t axles for 800

As far as the suspension is concerned your probably right. But I know for a fact that the driver rear tire does infact sit to the left it is very obvious when standing behind the car. I guess ill just have to live with it. If I decided to run the 200 what would you suggest as far as axles go? I think the 230 is a short nose so I would need to find a short nose 200 to keep my same driveshaft and mounts? I'd like to stay away from floating axles as they clearly aren't working well for me. What would be a good option to hold 450-500? I'm still very new to these rear end setups and un familiar with the differences in axles and diffs

I'm going to take my trashed cups and weld in some circle peices of plate steel in place of the c clips. I figure it will keep the bearings inside the cup. I figure at this point I don't have anything to loose with the old cups. If it doesnt hold together I'm going to swap in a 200.

Well guys.. I'm about out of suggestions here.. Everything is inline, tight, within tolerances etc. I'm have no clue what to do at this point.. I'm considering setting up a go pro under the car to see what happens, other than that I'm truly clueless as to how this can continue to occur. The only thing that seems off to me is the fact that the driver rear wheel sticks out farther towards the fender than the passenger does. Also the driver rear coilover adjustment ring sits almost a half inch lower to match the ride height of the passenger rear wheel.

This Is a good point. I think the star being wedged down the shaft is a direct result from after the failure. Once the incident occurred I got out and noticed massive movement back and forth. By the time I got it home 1-2 miles the axle would not slide inside the cup anymore.

I'm going to check and see if the cups are lined up tonight. Maybe they are off center and I could find a way to mount the diff further forward and higher.. I'm pretty sure they are lined perfectly though. All the mounting holes are in line and square. I don't see how the diff could be further back than it needs to be. I know the previous owner made a custom lower diff mount but the big one that bolts to the rear of the diff is centered and mounted firmly and the rest of the mount kit is out the box stuff.

Well I can tell you that the diff has about 1" before it touches the top. There is a square peice of "frame" or structure peice that runs parallel to the axles above the diff. The tallest part of the diff has about 1" of clearance before it makes contact with it. I don't possibly see how it could be raised up unless it was moved forward a couple inches.

I have a q45 r230 with the MM convertion axles and cups. I'm looking to get rid of this setup and swap a long nose r200 in its place. Lmk what you have.

No worries, maybe you can check them out when you get home and tell me what you think. I will measure the distance from the ground to the bottom of the diff when I get home tonight. I also just remembered that the previous owner cut the struts and re welded them together to make the springs work. From what I've read this is common? I'm not sure if the fact that the rear end seems to be shifted towards the driver side is common? I'm also curious why the control arm seems to be sitting higher even with the springs being equal on both sides.

All suspension is stock besides the ground control coilovers. Either spacers or longer axle are clearly needed in my application due to the ride height (check the videos). My dif sits quite low and as you can see. The angle of the driveshafts are quite extreme. The thing that gets me is that out of all the other lowered Z's I've seen my diff and axle angle is WAY lower and more extreme.. I don't understand why mine is so different. I would also like to add that the passenger side is in very good shape. The grease is fresh play within tolerance. I also measured to make sure that the springs where at the same length. Both rear springs are adjusted to the same height but the driver side (problem side) control arm actually sits about 1/2" higher than the passenger at full droop. I also noticed that the entire axle/dif setup seems to sit towards the driver side more by about an inch. It looks to be "offset" towards the left if your looking at it from the rear of the vehicle. I hope that makes sense.

No problem, I hope these videos will help me and others understand exactly what is going on behind the driver seat. As far as the star walking on the axle ends goes, having taken them apart 4-5 times now I'm pretty sure they are designed to walk slightly. I could be wrong but I don't think I am. With that said I think fixing them in place is a good idea. This could be blasphemy I don't know. If the star is wedging itself down the shaft and inturn popping the circlip out, that still doesn't explain the axle stops being ground to hell.

Forgot to add that everything looks good as far as i can tell. Ive had the car 2 weeks now.. (me rolling my eyes)

After further inspection i found all the ball bearings/cages to be intact. The only thign that was strange was the little star peice that sits inside the cage has wedged itself pretty good down the axle. I had to knock it loose with a hammer..