Sam's build thread

[sambb]

I love how he said that Newey was upset when they said the plenum had 80g of laquer on it. That's all F1 thinking but I bet the Aston people who aren't used to that were just going WTF!

[sambb]

450 bucks worth of new clutch discs and washers. Ouch!
removed the lid
the clutch pack stack revealed. here thrust washer and domed preload washer

[sambb]

The sequence of clutch plates. After the last clutch plate, the ring that has the ramps is removed, then the spline, exposing the gears. Once the gears are lifted out you can see the ring with the other sides ramps underneath - just a repeat of everything removed from the flat side of the housing

[sambb]

The only plate that had any kind of discernible wear on it was the plate that pushed against the ramp ring. Also a close up of the ramp profile that gives the 1.5 way action - half lock (that the clutch plates are capable of) on deceleration, 100% lock on acceleration. The plates came out and have been put back in to generate the maximum possible locking.

Id initially re assembled it with ordinary gear oil from work but then got all OCD and stripped it down again and rea assembled with the gear box oil I'll be using in the box.


So now the new ratio crown wheel and pinion, rebuilt LSD will go to the builder and we'll slap it together with a rebuild kit and some new synchros probably and then I'll be well and truly broke, unable to buy petrol and will just have to look at the box on the garage floor and wonder about how unreal it'll be until I find a suitcase of money and can buy a clutch and finish it all off! bsthurst is the aim in March but not sure if I'll make it.

[metalhead]

Not make Bathurst?? Blasphemy! I'm clutch shopping myself. The current big organic single has worked well, but after 2.5 years and 40,000 street and track km it has slipped badly twice when launching hard in the last couple of months. Given I have some heads here that should unlock another 80hp or so, and the box needs to come out to fix a leak, it's probably the right time to do the clutch too. Really unsure what way to go with it though, stick with a single and up the pressure with a more aggressive material, or bite the bullet and spend the cash for a twin plate and hope it lasts longer and drives nicer to offset the additional cost?

[simon k]

nice... mind having another crack at the images Sam?

[sambb]

Twin plate twin plate! No no I'll be at Bathurst no matter what, I mean I just wont commit to doing the new box before hand unless I'm certain it wont potentially compromise me going.

[sambb]

bugger they came up ok on my pc at home but now seem to have been rejected. yeah I'll have another go.

I'm picking up the crown wheel and pinion this arvo so fingers crossed the diff fits into the other. If so I can go ahead and button all that up so its one less thing for the gearbox guy to do.

[sambb]

Brand new crown wheel and pimion 61/18 = 3.4:1 more or less.
I dummy fitted the crown wheel to the LSD housing to make sure they were both 114mm and they were. Turns out that the crown wheel doesn't actually have a chamfer and stepped edge on it. My 113mm crown wheel could have just been passed through and taken out to 114mm without any tricky profiles being cut. I was quoted 200 bucks for that work, so anyone who wants to go down this path there is no major need to buy a new final drive if you have a 113mm crown wheel and your diff is 114mm - your is totally machinable for cheaper. But I like the idea now of the longer final drive and it'll be nice to know the box has some factory new parts in there too.
p.s I don't even know if the crown wheel is on the right way so don't copy my picks. I just wanted to check that the bolt lengths were correct with nothing pocking out the other side.

[sambb]

Need diff to ring gear assembly help:

I don't know what to torque them to. The bolts are an M11 X 1.0 hex head. The outside di of the threads is 10.85mm and the inside di is a bit over 10mm. In comparison an M12 coarse bolt at work had an inside pitch diameter of 10mm. So these Kaaz supplied bolts defo aren't M10 and they're not M12 either which is a bit odd.
So in working out the max torque the problem is that:
a) I don't know if they are 10.9 or 12.9's
b) just try to find the torque spec for a metric fine M11. The torque spec for an M10 vs an M12 is hugely different and I don't think I can just split the difference between the two because the curves don't work that way as far as I remember.

I've found some odd things on the net where people with this diff got in contact with Kaaz about the ring gear torque values because their instructions only mentioned torque specs for Hondas and Toyotas which had different numbers/sizes of bolts to the VW casing. I cant even refer to the VW specs 52 lb ft (70Nm) which is what Kaaz has said to do, a setting that sounds ridiculously low considering the factory setup was for either nuts onto push fit bolts or the diffs were riveted to the ring gears.

The Kaaz setup on this diff is for the bolts to thread directly into the diff casing. I assume the casing is seriously hard steel, but like I said without knowing the grade of the kaaz bolts, being able to find the torque specs for such odd size bolts on the net, and Kaaz saying nothing on the issue, I'm a bit unsure as to how to proceed.
I'm thinking just assume 12.9 grade and go for a torque setting on the low side of half way between M10 and M12. thoughts??!!

[simon k]

might not help, but similar size bolts on a mini diff are done up to 60lb/ft, there are 6 of them - from memory they are 7/16" which is about 11mm

your point b) look up the torque spec for 7/16 UNF (20 tpi) - my chart only goes up to grade 8 but it says 60lb/ft (lubed)

your point a) the grade of the bolt whether 10 or 12 shouldn't make any difference. Going by this: Grades of Bolts then you should do them up to 60lb/ft and leave them

[sambb]

All good now. Thanks mate. After lots of emails etc that fell on deaf ears I found that Kaaz have a facebook live thing and in the middle of the day today for some reason they responded. The figure was 65-70 ft lb which is 88-95Nm which puts them pretty squarely on the charts we have at work between 12 and 10mm. Don't know why the bolts have to be such a tricky size. So its all in the hands of the gearbox guy now. He'll strip the gears off the shafts (as the new pinion has to go in anyway) and inspect everything and then order whatever is needed before it all goes back together. I don't know if anyones done this diff into an 02R so I hope the casing and its inverted bolts have clearance etc

[simon k]

where are you at with tyres Sam? what's the best bang for buck to be running?

I'm all set up for my 15" wheels now, two have new-ish Nankang NS2 (205/55/15) and the other two have cracked and worn out Firestone road tyres, one of them with a nice piece of metal embedded in the tread... local tyre bloke told me new NS2s are $165 and only in 50 profile, I'm digging around for alternatives

I can get the Federal RS-R control tyre for the Hyundai Excel series for $100, but they're 195 width so I'd probably look like I was going for the tyre stretch look. The 205/50/15 jump up to $155 for the RS-RR

[sambb]

Is this for the street or track or both?

[simon k]

mostly just for the circuit, same kind of use as you

there's a set of used A050s on gumtree for $100, but they're in WA - haven't had a serious look at freight but I doubt it'll be cost effective