Question about half shafts on diff

[SketchyRollin564]

So i bought a vlsd from this guy who had a z32 that wanted to weld his diff. What he did was got an s13 diff, took the open unit out of that and welded it to swap it into his z32. His old vlsd unit which only had 90somthing thousand miles, was swapped into the s13 housing he got the open from

i bought that from him, but i noticed one of the output shafts sticks out a quarter of an inch. The other side goes in all the way, but you can easyly pull it out by hand

he says that its fine as long as you have the axles holding it in, but i just want to make sure before i run it in my car

id rather be safe than sorry and do it later, and put it back together the right way. But i still want to know, because if its fine, then i wanna change it today since im taking out my gas tank and doing my subframe collars anyways...

thanks in advance

[poshatch]

im pretty sure they have to be in all the way in order for it to be sealed properly. also, if you can pull it out by hand, that isnt safe to run either, it should take some tapping with a hammer to get it back out, pulling it out by hand is no good...at least i wouldnt run it

[E7-S14]

lol he said it doesn't need to be in all the way?

got a pic? to show exactly what your talking about?
If They are not in all the way then your axles wont fit between the hub and the inner halfshaft on the diff.

[White Comet]

thats fine thats how they are

[poshatch]

thats fine thats how they are

your suppose to be able to pull the half shafts out by hands with no force? really?

[White Comet]

there should be some force the the one sticks out a little farther

[Onizuka]

It depends on what you mean by "sticks out". If the shiny part of the shaft thats inserted into the dif is visible, thats bad. If you are talking about the offset of the axel in relation to the two half shafts, thats normal. The shafts should NOT be able to slide out freely.

If it were me I'd stay away from this, it sounds like its put together wrong and having driveline components fail at highway speeds can be very dangerous.

[SketchyRollin564]

Well to answer some of the questions, it would be easyest for me to just take pictures tomorrow during the day, which ill have to do

the dude didnt seem like a dumbass and he knew what he was doing. I asked him about it and he said it should be fine as the axles will hold them in, but he also said it wouldnt hurt to double check cause hes not 100% sure, so atleast hes being honest

id really like to put the diff in since i will be dropping my gas tank tommorow, and it will be a lot easyer with all that room down there

[E7-S14]

lol if he's not 100% sure, id break it down and assemble it correctly.

[SketchyRollin564]

yeah but i mean to be honest, i myself have no idea of the "correct way"

if i were to dissasemble it i would just go ahead and shim it, but then that gets rid of my plan

cause my plan was to use this one temporarily, get a j30 cause of the taller gearing, shim that, and then swap that in my car

so basically i want to use this one in the mean time till i can get a j30, take it apart and shim it

[White Comet]

unless something's really bad it is true that the axles would hold them in there. i mean even if one stuck out some or was able to move easily, the halfshaft would need like 8 inches of play to come out while driving

[SketchyRollin564]

unless something's really bad it is true that the axles would hold them in there. i mean even if one stuck out some or was able to move easily, the halfshaft would need like 8 inches of play to come out while driving

well thats good to know, but im still worried about it leaking fluid and what not front that

[White Comet]

theres not enough fluid to come out of the half shaft holes unless the diff is turned on its side, and if the diff is installed and the whole car is on its side leaking fluid is the least of your worries

[poshatch]

yeah but i mean to be honest, i myself have no idea of the "correct way"

if i were to dissasemble it i would just go ahead and shim it, but then that gets rid of my plan

cause my plan was to use this one temporarily, get a j30 cause of the taller gearing, shim that, and then swap that in my car

so basically i want to use this one in the mean time till i can get a j30, take it apart and shim it

thats smart having a spare because i tried shimming a diff and it is fairly self explanitory
BUT..one step in the write ups that i missed and didnt see until i read the entire post was that after you get it all opened up and you slide the shim in there, before you torque all those bolts back down to seal in the shim..you got to put the half shafts in and make sure they lightn up correctly! then bolt in a few so it dosnt move and then bolt in the rest and then put it all together

i got all the way done to just discover that the long half shaft wasnt ligning up in the viscous area of the diff...fail

so yeah when you shim it let me know how it goes! cause im not gonna put any more work into it unless it turns out good hahha

[SketchyRollin564]

hm... well i havnt had a chance to get pictures yet, but heres one i do have of it

though you cant really see the problem im describing from the picture

with the diff being as it is now with one of the shims already loose (ive read they are a b**** to get out), would it be fairly easy at this point to shim it? The only thing stopping me is that ive heard its difficult and i dont want to spend a long time doing it when i can just drop it in as it is, and shim another diff later

[White Comet]

shimming isnt really hard at all

[E7-S14]

Diff looks normal.. but if your able to pull the halflshaft inserts out by hand.. then something isnt right. they should come out with a little force.

and as far as shimming a diff. no it isn't hard, but you have to do things by the book. put it back together wrong and wala, u got a problem

[SketchyRollin564]

So im guessing its pretty straight forward if you know what your doing, as long as you dont mess up...

well that brings me to my next question lol

how easy is it to mess up?

[SketchyRollin564]

yeah but i mean to be honest, i myself have no idea of the "correct way"

if i were to dissasemble it i would just go ahead and shim it, but then that gets rid of my plan

cause my plan was to use this one temporarily, get a j30 cause of the taller gearing, shim that, and then swap that in my car

so basically i want to use this one in the mean time till i can get a j30, take it apart and shim it

thats smart having a spare because i tried shimming a diff and it is fairly self explanitory
BUT..one step in the write ups that i missed and didnt see until i read the entire post was that after you get it all opened up and you slide the shim in there, before you torque all those bolts back down to seal in the shim..you got to put the half shafts in and make sure they lightn up correctly! then bolt in a few so it dosnt move and then bolt in the rest and then put it all together

i got all the way done to just discover that the long half shaft wasnt ligning up in the viscous area of the diff...fail

so yeah when you shim it let me know how it goes! cause im not gonna put any more work into it unless it turns out good hahha

does that mean that its pretty much an open diff?

[poshatch]

hahahah umm it makes it a really heavy paper weight at the moment

it isnt too bad once you get it open

basically the only difficult parts are gettin the gear out of the housing which isnt that bad

getting out the bolts that hold in the teeth...you need an intense impact wrench or they are not comming out

making sure the half shafts line up after you put the shim in but before you start torquing everything down (key to the whole shimming thing)

and from there its putting it back together and it SHOULD go back together with some mild perswasion and then it should be good to go just be observant and keep track of everything comming off

[SketchyRollin564]

Ok, well ill check some write ups on that and most likely do it

but heres another thing

i was looking up some info online, and im not sure if its correct, but from what ive read it seems that even though the housings are identical, the s13 r200vs use different half shafts than the r200 non viscous, can anyone verify if this is true or not?

[SketchyRollin564]

bump, still need to know

i swear thats my last question lol

[E7-S14]

R200V Halfshafts WILL NOT work with R200 halfshafts.. their different lengths

[SketchyRollin564]

im guessing you meant that R200v interneals will not work with r200 halfshafts?

and so basically that answers my question all along of why one sticks out and why one comes out? cause they are too long on one side and too short on the other?

the dude i bought it from said he could cut the shafts if i brought it back to him, so im guessing im gonna have to do that?

[poshatch]

i wouldnt start modefying anything as important as a diff if they arnt fully compatable i wouldnt run it lol

[motoman399]

have you tried swapping sides with the half shafts. from what i remember they are different lengths.. sorry i didnt read the whole thing

[SketchyRollin564]

have you tried swapping sides with the half shafts. from what i remember they are different lengths.. sorry i didnt read the whole thing

im actually thinking about that

i just want to know for sure how the best way to go about this is. Cause according to all the websites with info on VLSD swaps, they say you can put the guts of a j30 vlsd into your open diff if you wanna keep your stock ratio, but they say nothing about halfshafts not working with the vlsd unit inside

[poshatch]

i say thats a pretty good idea to try switching the sides of the half shafts..maybe they didnt put it in the correct side is a possibility and somewhat easy to test

[nvrplzd240]

check the c clip on the half shafts that catches inside the diff, sometimes that gets jacked up a bit and doesnt let the shaft slide in all the way (i encountered that once)
if that's good then i'd switch sides just for s*** and giggles to make sure you didnt just switch it up on accident.
then if thats still not good i'd say the gearing is shimmed incorrectly, just pull the pumpkin apart and place the shims in different locations until you're good.. (i cant for the life of me remember the correct number for each side, sorry)

[SketchyRollin564]

ok i will try both of these and see how that works... and if im going to take the diff apart i might as well just shim it since the shim is like what, $5 from nissan?

and nvrplzed.... your car was sick, what the fck happend to it?