For my first mini project I am going to explore the advantages of learning something that is of high interest to me. This is supposed to parallel the HOMAGO idea that a person retains much more information and will work hard to obtain the information if they are driven by their own interest.
After reading through some car forums, I realized how much interest driven research is done during a build thread. For my mini project I decided to document a recent project of mine and take note of how I am letting my interest drive me to learn.
The purpose of this project was to swap a limited slip differential into my Nissan 240sx. For those of you who do not know what that is, simply put: I spin two tires instead of one = more traction. Below is a picture of the open differential (spins one tire) that comes stock in my car.
Below is the limited slip differential I pulled of an Infiniti J30 that was in a junkyard. Since Infiniti is owned by Nissan, a lot of the cars share similar parts. Notice some similarities: the number of bolt holes around the perimeter of the housing, output shafts have the same bolt pattern, and the outer bearings are the same size.
Here is where the differences in the differentials start to turn up. The housing on the left is out of the J30 and the housing on the right is out of my 240sx. Notice that the J30 differential has two bolts instead of four. Some people choose to swap these covers and bolt the J30 differential on to their 240sx's. However, this is not the best option for me.
Below, the 240sx differential is on the left and the J30 is on the right. Here is where it becomes obvious that I can not simply bolt the J30 differential in. Notice the wire coming of the "snout" of the J30 differential. This is a speed sensor that monitors how fast the driveshaft is spinning. This is used for anti-lock braking systems (ABS). This sensor adds about an inch of length on the differential; which would not allow proper driveshaft fitment.
So now I have to take the internals out of the J30 unit and install them into my 240sx housing. Below is a picture with both internals pulled out. Left is J30, right is 240sx. To maintain proper fitment items like the ring gear and shims (used to center the differential inside the housing) from 240sx differential had to be swapped onto the J30 limited slip unit.
Lastly, after everything is swapped over and installed properly, it is time to install the axle output shafts. Since the internals of my differential have changed, so must my output shafts. Below is a picture of one of the output shafts that mated up with the J30 differential. With these installed, I bolt everything back together and go for a test drive and burn some tires!
While this post may go way of some people's heads, I would like to point out that this was once way over my own head. The information in the post is not something one can learn in school. One must search for the information. Through my own determination, I did hours of research to find out what parts fit where along with the proper way to do it.
