Jeff N.

Bad news: The drivers side output flange on my LSD transaxle has 1 to 2 mm of end play as well as some very slight up/down play when moved by hand. Looking in the sleeve where the flange mounts, there's an end piece that the allen bolt screws into that seems to be loose. If you screw in the bolt without the flange, you can pull this piece in/out with in the sleeve itself. Looks like some problem with diff unit.

Talking to German Transaxle in Bend Or. about a possible rebuild but they have warned that these symptoms may mean that some of the hardened parts have been damaged as well thus driving the rebuild cost into the stratosphere. I'll be having a followup conversation with them today based on some more information.

On the unit: Has 170k miles, was generally quiet prior to this work. 2nd gear syncro grabs a little. Input shaft is tight. Oil was clean and showed no shavings but as I have few miles on the car, it's hard to know if the unit has 1k miles or 20k miles on the oil. Was R&Ring the half shafts due to worn CV's when I discovered this issue with output flange. Car had a "wobble" in the aft under hard accel so was generally going thru things.

Several questions:

- anyone familiar with this specific problem? Archive search shows no hits.

- value of replacing with an LSD vs. non-LSD. LSD units are harder to find and more expensive. Car will be used for DE and Sunday driving; what's the opinion on putting in a non-LSD unit in the car?

Olli Snellman

Just buy a non LSD trans and swap your LSD unit into that trans. It's very simple thing to do.

KuHL 951

If you are talking about the output shaft housing having play in and out of the case I say that's normal. Every trans I've seen has some axial play. The up and down motion around the bearing isn't good though. You might just need a new output bearing set and do that 2nd gear synchro while you are in there. Of course the 'while I'm in there syndrome' will haunt you!

Jeff N.

Thanks Steve. The variance in the in/out play (axial?) from the passenger to the drivers side is quite noticeable. The passenger side is generally tight while the drivers side is measureable and what I'd call "significant".

Any idea what that 'loose part' is at the back of the input shaft and if it's normal? (I need to pull the passenger side half shaft and see what is looks like down that shaft.)

Concur with your thinking that the up/down play is not good. It is much less signficant. It almost seems it the play is due to flange / spline fit vs. bearing play. I tried to load the output bearing in the housing with a breaker bar and inspect for movement. Didn't seem like there was any observable. I think a careful meansure of the flange would interesting to see if there's any wear. On the other hand, with 170k on the unit - bearing wear is certainly likely.

Jeff

Jeff N.

Question for Olli. Great suggestion to swap in the LSD. Does that require the diffy to be disassembled and reshimmed?

jyoon

if you swap in your lsd, you should measure the backlash and may need some shimming both on the ring and pinion and output shafts.

333pg333

If you want to do anything more than a quick drive to the mall, don't consider not having an LSD in my opinion.

Jeff N.

Update:

Well, after some conversations offline with those with some experience, decided to just bolt it all up and see what happened. Net net - works fine at this point.

The in/out play remains on the output flanges. When I removed the half shaft on the passenger side, there was similar but slightly less play on that side. Both sides show very minor up/down play with the flanges attached. I'm going to attribute this to normal wear at the moment and monitor it closely.

I'll drain the oil in about 5k miles and look for evidence of shavings or similar.

Thanks everyone for all the help.

tommo951

On the subject of transaxles that would take excessive power, have a look at this http://porschehybrids.com/viewtopic.php?t=2002 !!! Now that would even keep Special Tool within limits!!

87924GT

I have a tranny, if/when you need one.
Steve Ed