1 tuff z Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 in august i installed techno toy tuning rear lower control arms, removing my arizona z car lca's. prior to heading to the alignment shop i had [what i thought] was a good idea. as my upper strut towers are slotted, i moved my struts outboard and, when they dialed in the neg camber i requested i could still add neg camber when at the track if needed by simply moving the struts inboard via my slotted towers. main reason for purchase of the ttt lca's was complete on car adjustability. from the limited driving i did they seemed to work great. the shop that does my alignments performs mainly track prep for bimmers and p-cars, some are track only. the guy that does the work is a long time race crew chief and commented on how much he liked the lca's for both their construction and ease of adjustability. my idea to allow trackside camber adjustment is/was flawed. driving around town and over 100 miles before i hit the track, including a few glorious burnouts i experienced zero problems. 2nd lap at watkins glen, car is warm and i step into it coming through the esses that lead to the back straight. pop, grind, grind then both speedo and tach rise but i'm not going faster. great, i'm thinking i just blew the q45 diff, 1st session of a 3 day event. limp back to the garage bay and disover the diff is fine but left axle is suspect. i pull the axle and find the cv balls in the boot. pull the axle apart and find the carrier for the balls is fractured [later breaks] and i figure it's fatigue and source another from a local jy. that night get it fixed, 1st lap 2nd day, pop-same thing but the other side. fix the right axle, think it happened due to my brainchild idea for camber adjustment which actually widened the track. so, to fix it and be able to drive home i pull the upper struts inboard fully then pull inboard the lca's as well [nearly zero camber now but driveable]. this time the inner retaining ring got bent and nearly gave way. both times it seems as thought the axle was extended too far. fast forward, today i [finally] get the axles out and pull apart the left side. check it all over, looks ok. measure both compressed and extended lengths. i get ~13.25" comp, 16.1 ext. then i remove the spring from my coilover to run the suspension thru it's travel. ~13.5" from full droop to full comp. questions to the braintrustees here. does my rationale for failure seem accurate? anyone know the servicable lengths for the q45 mod axles [mine are from modern motorsports]? ideas? pic of my damage. clockwise, broken cage and damaged spyder as well as dinged balls [ouch], damaged end cup, good end cup, good retainer ring, bent ring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RB26powered74zcar Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 Axles are definitely too short to pull out of the cages like that. My pass side axle did that (custom cobbled 88SS VLSD axle) on me twice under power until I added a 1/2 spacer between the comp flange and the outer 1/2 shaft cup cage. Sorry if this reply is off topic, just thought I'd offer my experience up with too short axles... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 You need a stop on the inboard and outboard side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 tuff z Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 You need a stop on the inboard and outboard side have both, not pictured [purch from mml] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 If you have stops on both ends, you need a longer axel. Sorry for the bad news. Let us know what you end up doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilC Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 David I know we spoke about this awhile back but I can't remember now. Is it the inboard cv that blew up on both sides? With Mark saying that the axle stops need to be in (which I know you have), does anyone think new stops with a bigger step to it would be a fix vs the longer axle. Here is my thought, during susp travel...the axle is moving outboard and being short...it is detroying the cv housing but "floating" outboard. Say you have the same situation happening but the axle stop is "longer" and that helps limit the "floating" of the axle, would be have the same issue? I am not sure what the normal gap is between the axle stop and axle. The axle stop being in the cv housing should be moving at the same speed as the axle, so if they touch with the stop being longer than maybe that shouldn't be a problem. That is another topic because I still can explain this: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=146463&highlight=axle+stop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Clive is the smart one here. He is right. On my set up, years ago I had the same problem. Clive jarred my memory. Our solutiuon was to weld a cyclinder to the stop. It made the stop longer and solved the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rags Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 (edited) David, Did the stops wear down like Clive's stops? Maybe they just wore down too far? Joe That's what happens when work gets in between reading a post and writing a response Edited November 9, 2009 by rags no explanation necessary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilC Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 I think I came up with something else looking at an old pic of my car. During suspension travel the axle stop and axle are no longer parallel. I am thinking, when this happens the axle becomes angled to the axle stop which causes the axle to become a "drill bit" and gives us the pattern we see on several of our axle stops. The case that the axle stop is in the cv housing so it should be moving at the same speed as the axle doesn't hold true because the stop can "slip" in the housing. The slip I speak of is the OD of the stop, layer of grease and then the ID od the cv housing. Does this make sense to anyone else? I am thinking that the forces acting on the housing (centripetal and normal) that axle stop is not always moving at the same speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 tuff z Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 my axle stops are "drilled" but not the same. i'll check later and post. think one inbd and the other otbd are 'drilled'. right inbd, left otbd are both effected or drilled, slightly less for the left inbd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 tuff z Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 mark, how did you determine how thick to make the extension? Clive is the smart one here. He is right. On my set up, years ago I had the same problem. Clive jarred my memory. Our solutiuon was to weld a cyclinder to the stop. It made the stop longer and solved the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 I measured the depth of the CV housing and figured what thickness would be required to keep th CV in the housing with a little to spare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blown77Z Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Seems like I JUST had this problem with my setup this past spring.... I had a hardened nut about 3/4"-1" wide welded to each of the axle stops INSIDE the Q45 axle housings on my passenger side. The driver side seems fine atm..... No problems after the nuts were welded in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 tuff z Posted April 21, 2010 Author Share Posted April 21, 2010 did anyone else here purchase the axles from ross for their q45 swap? just heard from a friend who received his and they are 1/4" difference in length. funny thing is mine are exactly the same length. does this mean i received an incorrect order and possible contributor to my problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted July 5, 2010 Share Posted July 5, 2010 Bringing back this thread because I'm in the middle of sorting a fitment issue with my driver's side axle... When I originally installed the axles (These were bought from Tim240Z about 9million years ago) they were mis-labelled and I had the longer axle on the passenger side which kicked toe out horribly. So I swapped axles and then ended up with the same thing on the driver's side. The axle is to long to fit within the gap... Instaling the shorter axle on the passenger side allows for plenty of suspension adjustment and more importantly, necessary toe changes to be made. So my question is, how long is the driver's side axle supposed to be? I DO have Ross' axle stops, along with his flanges/stub axles... Thanks in advance! Mike Kelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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