sweetride2go Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 (edited) A buddy and I have been working on making a hybrid R200 with H233B guts as a cheaper alternative to currently available LSD's in the Z. This hasn't made a lot of progress lately, mainly due to time and financial obstacles. However, the H233B LSD carrier is available in a lot of WD21 Pathfinders and can be found at most junkyards. This diff is a clutch type LSD and are equipped with 4 pinion spiders. It has proven itself well in the 4x4/off road crowd. Stock gearing is quite low, being: 4.88 4.62 4.37 4.11 The Pathy gear ratio's don't affect us much since we are trying to put this in an R200 housing and will be using available R200 ring and pinion gear ratio's. The first noticeable difference is the larger diameter of the ring gears and mounting surfaces. We machined the housing down and drilled new ring gear bolt holes. The R200 ring gear now slides on nice and snug. Our current problems are that the axles are 33 spline, this will most likely require custom stub axles. The other is that since this diff came out of a fat and heavy Pathfinder the breakaway torque(the amount of torque required to spin wheel independently from the other) is quite high for putting into car(or an S30 in this case). This may require shimming or changing out of certin clutch plates(see below). Picture of the H233B guts, more or less. This is the clutch pack for one side. No friction material on these, just grooved discs that are certin thicknesses. The clutch pack laid out. The two non-flat, non-splined spring plates are on the right. The radially-splined pieces w/ the tabs are the friction plates. The spiral-splined pieces w/ the “teeth†in the center are the friction discs. Notice the small retainers that sit on the outer tabs of the plates. One clutch pack/side gear assembly. So far we have acquired an R200 for free(used for measuring, parts, and final housing), and a junkyard special H233B, with a grand total $75 invested, not counting donated machine time. Of course we still need stub axles, which will be more $$$, and side bearings. To be continued: Cheers Ryan~ Edited January 20, 2011 by sweetride2go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONGO510 Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 (edited) very cool Ryan, keep us posted!! What do the stock stubs look like? How about free play issues? Mongo Edited January 20, 2011 by MONGO510 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 (edited) It is out of a live axle, so there is no stub axles, just really long ones, haha. I am going to design the new stub axles to accept the old school 4 bolt half shafts, and the newer 300zx CV shafts that people are running with. But I'm still in the process of drawing these up. Actually I'm still making sure I can get the side bearing situation figured out before I start on the stubs, which is the more expensive part of the project. Free play issues? I'm not familiar with the term... The 233 housing sits almost exactly where the 200 one does, its just off center by .120" Edited January 20, 2011 by sweetride2go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONGO510 Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Doh! My Bad. I mean't "backlash" not free play. Mongo It is out of a live axle, so there is no stub axles, just really long ones, haha. I am going to design the new stub axles to accept the old school 4 bolt half shafts, and the newer 300zx CV shafts that people are running with. But I'm still in the process of drawing these up. Actually I'm still making sure I can get the side bearing situation figured out before I start on the stubs, which is the more expensive part of the project. Free play issues? I'm not familiar with the term... The 233 housing sits almost exactly where the 200 one does, its just off center by .120" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping to get the carrier in the housing this weekend if I have time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) Well, the H233B side bearings are to wide/small for the R200 housing. Oddly enough, the 200 side bearings have a smaller ID (.010)and a larger OD than the 233's. So I removed the 233 side bearings and off I go to the machine shop. There we shaved down sides where the 200 bearings will be pressed on. Only other problem is that I only have one R200 bearing... Here is the pictorial progress; This is half of the 233 with a 200 bearing partially pressed on. The bearing on the top left is what came off the 233... Some of the prior machine work, relocating ring gear bolt holes for the 200 ring gear. Also notice that we had to shave off a lot of the old carrier, hence the half-round holes on the outside of where the ring gear mounts. We also had to shave down the outside of the carrier, 'under' where the ring gear goes as to allow it to slide on, and you can see that here. This has all been done on a mill, but could have been easily done on a lathe... I am now in search of a R200 carrier and one side bearing, somehow the old one got lost and I need it to make measurements from. Also if anyone has a set of 3.9 gears, haha. That is the latest as of now... Cheers Ryan Edited January 24, 2011 by sweetride2go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONGO510 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Ryan, do you know if any of the other carriers use stubs that have the same spline? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetride2go Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 I have been digging, but without much success(I find I am less successful with Google than I used to be...). Finding spline counts on carriers seems to have become a PIMA. Most of my success has been on 4x4 forums, but I find their "actual data" is conflicting and wrong in some cases. The H233B above has 33 spline stubs, which is great for strength, but unfortunately leaves slim pickings in my being able to find anything else that uses 33 spline stubby axles. JMortensen brought to my attention the possibility of using other carriers, which I am also in the search of. Right now I'm looking for late model Mustangs, which use a 28 spline axle I believe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONGO510 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 How about a different set of side gears? Mongo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 "Late model" mustangs meaning in the last few years I think are using the 31 spline axles. It is possible that the 6 cyl is using the 28 spline, but I have a listing for 31 spline axles for Mustangs 2005-present in one of my axle catalogs. If you go back to the Fox body days they mostly used 28 spline axles. If it is anyone's fault that it's so hard to figure out, it's the car manufacturer's. There are some 4x4 trucks which have 3 or 4 axle options on the same truck FRONT AND REAR in the same year. It makes it very hard to know what is what... The problem with the Ford 8.8 is that they don't have a good torque sensing diff other than the True Trac which is a helical, and if you're looking for a cheap helical you can already get the OBX without the extra hassle. I would suggest looking at Dana diffs as they have the PowrLok which is very similar to the Nissan LSD, clutch style, 2 way torque sensitive, and very strong. Dana 44 had a 30 spline axle. I think you'll be making side gears in all likelihood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.