Ohh... DIY Quaife install and gear swap... you are a brave man!

Best of luck to you. Take lots of pics!

 

Well, I hope the diff will be a nice watertight bag before going for a bath.

Brave man! I wouldn't even know where to start. And I'm surprised. I thought shimming was required for any transmission work, since everything should be aligned right or big problems will occur...Well, thats what I always thought.

Good luck!

 

I'm going to shim it properly

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Yeah, I'm going to do the shimming bit, but it will be complicated. And like I said, I have to make the shims, because they aren't in the catalogs.

Also, I'm not putting the diff in water. I'm probably only going to put the case in water... only, I just realized that there are still bearing races in it... for the gear shafts... So scratch that idea, since they would rust.

"Honey, you mind if I put my transmission in the oven?"

Maybe I'll try freezing the outer races, and putting them in a room temp case... seems easier to do than putting room temp races in a 80*C case...

I checked the parts out last night, the speed sensor wheel and bearings are definitely the right parts. The seals look right too. So, those part numbers are good. I'll keep you guys posted.

Also, I'm not actually changing the ratios. It's a euro tranny, that comes with those ratios, so it's an easy swap over.

 

What about a "forced air kerosene heater" to warm it up. We used one to warm up the engine block of the sprint car on cold days. One day someone accidentally moved it a bit and next thing we know the front tire is smoking. Those things produce allot of heat when placed in close proximity. Portable Kerosene Forced Air Heater on ebay
I'm sure living up there that you've got to know somebody with one of those.

 

Cool, Quaife going in the Turbomonster

You know, SCC had a nice article about a Quaife install in a MTX-75, with a comment that the LSD swap was very simple. It was changing the final drive that got ugly. But if you've got a Euro transmission, and where might I ask, did you find that??? then the difficult gear swap is already done. Maybe I'll see if I can scan the SCC article and post it for you.

 

Cool; I hope it goes well. This is the one modification that my car will be getting that I may not do myself (still undecided).

 

Frankly, a lot of people consider the Quaife install "simple" because they do not do it right. You will not see an article in SCC 2 months later talking about how their transmission failed

Give me a patient on a table, a scalpel, and a spare heart. I'll perform a heart transplant.

Is it going to work? NO.

It's critical to get the shimming correct on the diff, and most people are just skipping this step. The only person I have heard of that is doing it right, is Terry Haines Motorsport up here in Michigan.

I've heard from a number of people who didn't do the shimming operation, and the tranny failed. I've heard of people who got it done at "professional tuners" and the tranny is failing...

You've got about a 1 in 5, or 1 in 10 chance of it all working out if you skip the shimming operation.

Basically, you get the bearings on the diff. Remove the old bearing race and shim from the transmission.

Install a 1.1mm measurement shim, and the new race.

Assemble the transmission.

Check the free play in the differential with a dial indicator. There is a calculation (I don't have in front of me...) something like Shim=1.1mm + free play + .1mm preload.

So, if you measure .5mm play with the 1.1mm shim, then you need a 1.7mm shim for a .1 mm preload. Something like that.

So, you take apart the tranny again. Remove the race and shim. Install the new shim, and reassemble.

NOW you're done.

You need a specific preload on the bearing. The only way to get it is to measure it this way. If it's too lose, it will wobble around, and probably make noise, and eventually fail. If it's too tight, it will be quiet, but will probably fail much more quickly...

See, it's not as easy as they say in the articles. I have the shop manual.

The Euro transmission "fell off the back of a truck"

Be careful if you are paying somebody to do this... make sure they are doing it right, and not the quick and dirty way.

 

That sounds like the tranny that I've always wanted int hte Focus!!! Higher first gear with everything else closer. Even at my weak NA power levels first gear is easy to be useless and over too quick when drag racing to do anyone any good.

 

Originally posted by P-51:

Be careful if you are paying somebody to do this... make sure they are doing it right, and not the quick and dirty way.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That is EXACTLY why I am paying Ford to install mine. The install includes a 1yr/24000mile warranty on labor AND parts. So if they install it incorrectly and any of the aftermarket parts fail, Ford eats the bill. I'd rather have someone else do it if I had the option, but down here they are the only one's I'd trust in my area to tear apart my tranny.

 

I would absolutely DEMAND that they show you the shims they purchased, and that you want the old shim returned to you. That is the ONLY way to gaurantee they even attempted to do it right.

Be careful. Even dealerships will cut corners. That's why it pays like 5 hours to swap it, but it's possible to do it in 2 if you cut corners, and they will try.

 

Shimming really isn't that big of a deal to perform and it's certainly isn't that difficult. Are you sure that so many people are not doing it? I think it's pretty standard practice on a manual trans rebuild for all cars.

BTW... are you measuring wind-up torque on the new bearings? On the VW tranny, after you do the pre-load, you check the wind-up torque. I don't have the tool to do this and never have done it on the Quaife installations I've done. So far all three are still running strong.

 

I know it's not rocket science, but it does double the work to be done. I know for a fact that most of the installations are NOT doing it.

The factory service manual does not talk about measure wind up. I assume that means measuring the no-load resistance to rotation?

No, it doesn't mention that, so I wouldn't know what to do.

 

but is it a must rob? I heard that the tranny has a range of specs, and when swapping diffs, it remains in spec as far as the play, but i dont know, is there a chance that it will still be in spec? The guy who put mine together said that shimming was unnecessary...

is it just a quaife thing? Or aftermarket lsd? When rebuiding the tranny, is there any other parts that require shimming other than the diff??? Im gonna talk to the guy again

Ok just talked to them again...and they said that on my car they didnt replace the whole diff, they just took the guts out or something and nothing was really replaced or something, but he IS aware of shiming, and they DO have BAGS of shims there...just for ur info, maybe u might want to give them a ring about shims...

im gonna talk to him later on today again...but like i asked before, is the diff the only thing that requires shimming?

Im still figuring out why my 3rd gear grinds, it might be the shifter assembly with the spring inside of it(not the shifter centering spring, the one farther inside) he said that was messed up when he took it out...i may need a new spring and hopefully that will help, but its pissing me off...

[ 11-08-2002, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: nazthug ]

 

I think it took my mechanic about 12 hours to do the full Quaife/Flywheel/Clutch install. I can go dig out the bill. He did the shims by hand using fine grained sandpaper to get them down to the proper spec.

 

Shimming does not double the amount of work to do. You put only the diff in the case and run a few bolts to torque with the gasket on, then measure. Pull it apart again and put the proper shims in. If you have shims, you can do that in about 10 minutes.

Shimming may not be required if you are really lucky and your new diff is the same width (bearing to bearing) as the one you pull out... and you have the races seated at exactly the same depth as the ones you take out. Unlikely. You should still measure it to check.

[ 11-08-2002, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: groot ]

 

Look at what P-51 is saying -

the shims are not in the ford catalogs!

I think the chance of getting one to drop in with the right clearance is about as good as finding rocking-horse poo.

The shimming is obviously an essential step, and I certainly would not trust Johnny Mechanic down the road to do it without 'supervision'.

 

Most shops wouldn't buy shims from the Ford catalog anyway. They usually have a stock of them.