The LOLRSVPBBQ how to fit a minispool into VN-VS live axle super happy thread.

[VN_Luke]

Ok - I figured since I was swapping diff centres and fitting up a minispool I'd write up some instructions on how to perform this operation.

This guide applies to specifically VN-VS live axle rear ends, and assumes that you're pretty handy with a spanner and aren't afraid to work on your own car.

It also presumes that you already know the basics - how to lift and securely support your car, how to use a torque wrench, yada yada....

- edit: on another more 'legal' note - I feel compelled to advise anyone reading this guide that this modification will ensure that your car does NOT comply with road worthiness requirements. I also feel compelled to advise that this modification could cause EXTREME fun when done on a track car. Anyway, as such I don't take any responsibility for anything in this guide, or anything that following this guide might lead to (even if it is extreme fun!)


Okay so lets start from the beginning-ish. You'll notice that I'm transferring a center out of a diff that's out of a car, and putting it into the diff that's in my car (because mine was stuffed). Somewhere in the middle there, the center gets a minispool fitted up to it, so pay attention or you might MISS IT.

So as mentioned, I'm starting with a bare diff - to get yours to similar status, you have to:

1. securely lift and support the back of your car
2. undo your wheels (5 x 19mm nuts on each wheel)
3. undo your rear brake calipers (2 x 17mm head bolts, each with a spring washer, on the back of the 'backing plate' as I call it)
4. remove your rotors.
5. remove the panhard rod (19mm bolt and nut on the pass side mount, and 19mm nut on the driver side mount)
6. ok so now you're up to the stage where I'm at (except your diff is still in the car, sucker)



7. put a big drainage pan under the diff center, the diff holds maybe 3 litres? but get a bigger pan



8. undo the back cover and pry it off (a whole heap of 1/2" bolts) - watch the brake lines and gently move them out the way



9. while that's all draining, go around to either side of the car, and remove the 4 9/16" nuts that retain the axle in the diff. (as pictured). You will need to manouver (read, shift with a screwdriver for leverage) the handbrake shoes out the way to get your socket on there. Aim through the big hole in the axle!




10. once those 4 bolts are undone, get your brake rotor, put it on backwards, and thread a few nuts onto the wheel studs - but not all the way, just a handful of turns will be fine - the aim is to use the rotor as a 'slide hammer' to knock the axle out.





11. this is the bit where you find out if you secured your car properly on stands or not - push the rotor all the way inwards, then gank on the rotor HARD, as to try 'yank' out the axle. Be careful not to fall back into anything if it does let go lol. - a few solid ganks should really free it up. the longer it's been in there, the worse it is I guess. I usually get it in about 3-4 hits, but i really do put a whole heap of effort into it!!.



12. repeat for the other side axle!

13. pull out the axles from the diff (they just pull out once they been shocked) - it's handy to put a drain pan on either end of hte diff to catch a bit of oil that might come out. - it also helps to clean the axles with a rag as you're pulling them out to save yourself gettin DIR-TEE!

14. now that the axles are out, and all the oil has drained from the center, we can focus on pulling the center out!! - undo the 4 bolts that hold the 'caps' on either side of the diff centre, then pull the caps off (remember which way they went!)

15. once the caps are removed, you should be able to get a crowbar or a stick or something, and pry the diff center out by the cronwheel bolts as demonstrated in the pic. - be careful cause this puppy is pretty heavy - heavier than you expect. So get a rag over your hand and get ready to catch/pull it out with a bit of prying etc. - caution: the teeth are pretty sharp and can leave nasty cuts! - also remember to keep the shims on either side of the center in the same direction & location for later!




16. Put the center into a small container to let the oil drain out of it a bit more (unless you don't mind a dirty work bench) - remember to keep the bearings and the bearing cups together



17. undo the bolts that hold the crownwheel onto the diff - THESE ARE A LEFT HAND THREAD! - I used a rattle gun for this, because it makes life easy! I'm pretty sure it's a 5/8" socket for these - but don't undo them all the way! leave a few threads still in



18. thanks to not undoing the bolts all the way, we can use them as a point to hit with a hammer to help get the crownwheel off - hit gently and progressively go all around the bolts to try knock the crownwheel off the diff centre. - this does take a few hard hits, but make sure the bolts are still a few threads in, otherwise you'll stuff them, and I won't care.



19. after you can't hit the bolts anymore, the crownwheel will still be hanging on a bit - but by now you should be able to cleanly hit the actual crownwheel with a plastic mallet or something and gently knock the rest of it off.

20. the next step is to hammer out he 3 split pins from the diff center that hold the main pins that the gears rotate on in place. You should use a split pin remover, but i used a broken allen key, because I'm cool.





21. feed the split pins through,a nd pull them out when they're out the other side - simple enough!



22. once the split pins are removed, you should be able to hit the side of the main pins and bash them out the side of the diff centre. - use a bolt or a punch or something to give you the extra length you need when hitting these out! - note that there is one long one, and two small ones. The trick with the small ones is to hit one into the other, then hit them both out the one side



23. here are the pins once removed



24. now it's time to split open the centre. Use a sharp solid instrument (screwdriver? scraper? something) and give it a whack with the hammer to split the two halves apart.



25. this is what it looks like when it's all apart - remove all the bits, and give everything a thorough clean to get rid of the oil and stuff - ... then go wash your hands and





26. have a beer!! - it's a bit hard to decide which one to have - as you see I went with the Coopers because I wasn't going to be driving that night, etc. Just in case you're anxious about trying your new spool, I find it's best to have an emergency 6 pack of lights hanging in the fridge.



27. okay - place the minispool into the big half of the center



28. smash the big pins back in, being careful to line up all the holes for the split pins in the right places!!! (there are only 3 split pins! make sure you get the big pin in the right way etc so that the split pins can all go through lol)



29. then lock the big pins in place with the split pins from earlier. (you should probably use new ones, but I don't care, so I didn't)



30. hit the split pins in till they hang out about this far from the other side


31. put the other half on, line it up with the split pins, and give it a few small love taps to get it to sit together nicely.


32. put the ring gear on - line the bolt holes up as best you can!

33. now this was a bit of a prick for me, so I got creative - I got two blocks of wood and made a 'support' for the ring gear, so that i could bash the center of the diff and effectively 'press' on the ring gear with a few hits evenly distributed around the outside of the center.



34. once you got the ring gear pretty close to the bolt holes, put the bolts through and tighten them up one by one, bit by bit, all the way around, untill the ring gear is secure and torqued up to whatever it says in the book.

35. now get those shims and bearing carriers that you took out earlier, and work out which way they went



36. put the diff center loosly back in the diff - while holding it with one hand, slide the shims in on either side so they just hold the centre in place!



37. give the shims a love tap with a small hammer, until they are all the way into place and everything is lovely.




38. put the bearing caps on.



39. torque up the bearing caps to the specified torque



40. grease up the ends of your axles


41. gresae up the axle seals a bit


42. put the axles back in, and tighten up those 9/16" nuts that hold them in place .........



43. clean and seal the diff cover joining surfaces, then put it back on and do up the bolts....

43. fill the bastard full of oil till the filler hole overflows, then plug it up

43. put the rest back together - and go do some shkidz!

[vn calais manual]

such a good write up well done

[padrickz88]

great write up, rep given and 5 stars

[Thomas1]

Awesome write up. You make it look so easy

[stocky]

i'll add my little bit. i had trouble trying to crack the crown wheel bolts, as i couldnt find a decent clamp anywhere. ended up geting luke to help me, but later on i found a good way of doing it.

1. Place a spare tyre on the ground, facing up.
2. Place on axle on the wheel.
3. Put the diff centre on top of the axle.

This might be all you need to get enough leverage to crack the bolts, but if its still move abit you can do a little more.

4. add another axle on top of the diff centre. It should look like an assembled diff without the housing now.
5. place a crowbar or something similar in between two of the studs on top, and get someone to hold it.

you should be able to crack the crownwheel bolts using just a breaker bar. comes in handy if you dont have a rattle gun

[Haydz]

Awesome right up man.


good work on the pics.


whats it like to drive now? ive been toying with the idea for a while now. but still not sure on which way i will go as i have an lsd sitting in the garage.

[VN_Luke]

whats it like to drive now? ive been toying with the idea for a while now. but still not sure on which way i will go as i have an lsd sitting in the garage.

good - but i had a spool beforehand, I only did this guide cause I was changing a shattered axle (which also unfortunately stuffed the diff centre too)

(though this is the first axle I've broken in about 40,000km of driving with a spool - but I think it's not really the spool that's caused it - so don't get put off )

[Haydz]

the amount of power i have i deffinitely dont have to worry about snapping axles like you

[VN_Luke]

I dunno if it was solely power - there's a fair few tough cars rollling down the 1/4 mile with way more power than mine, on the 28 spline center still! - the only thing is that they're mostly autos that load up the driveline nicely and there's no real sudden shock to the diff....

I think mine's a combination of power, driver mis-use, and axle tramp issues - none of which are good on diffs lol

I reckon if you're comfortable doing this stuff yourself - chuck the LSD center in - if it dies and starts singling everywhere too soon for your liking - chuck in a spool and you'll be thrilled.

[padrickz88]

thats true, and when your axle snapped didnt it have something to do with a pothole?
1 wheel keeps going but the other getting forced into a pothole would never be good :P


spool = win!

[VrWagz1]

Nice write up, you gone to alot of trouble there, well done

[Wagon_Wheel]

Nice right up dude!!!!! Doesnt look as hard as i have thought, i have gone as far as taking the crownwheel and pinion gears out of a diff, which is like 3/4 of the way there.
Havnt done it on IRS though, most of it would be the same though, cept obviously the axles, but the ends of the IRS diff that the drive shafts bolt onto... any idea how different they would be to get out to be able to get the centre out?

[immortality]

nice write-up mate. was going to do one when my LSD gives out but you saved me some work

one thing, it may be easier for people to "crack" the crown wheel bolts (if they don't have a rattle gun) whilst the center is still in the car, that way someone can stop the center from turning by applying the brakes (obviously before removing axles) and you can swing on those bolts.

i also squirt some CRC5.56/WD40 on the 4 studs that hold the axles in, then the steel type locknuts come off easier.

IRS centers don't use shims to set the center position, they use threaded adjustments. probably easiest to only undo one side so when you tighten the other side when you re-fit it's in exactly the same spot. failing that, use a marker pen of some sort to mark the exact positions of the adjustments and then unwind X number of turns, when re-fitting tighten X number of turns again and line up your marks to have center back in original position

[Troy5L]

wicked, nice write up, since ur pretty handy with diffs, mayb a writeup on diff gear installation

[stocky]

wicked, nice write up, since ur pretty handy with diffs, mayb a writeup on diff gear installation

diff gears arent too hard. its just getting them lined up where the issue is, but it is doable at home if you can still see the yellow paint markers on the diff gear parts

[savage1987]

Brilliant write-up, wish I knew this was here when I stumbled through my install.

NOW. I have silly low springs in the back and axle tramp quite badly. Anything I can do to minimize that?

[Boonz]

new nolathane upper control arms

[savage1987]

ok cheers for that

edit: does it really need to be nolathane? how much longer will nolathane or similar last? They are many times the price of standard replacement new ones.

[Boonz]

ok cheers for that

edit: does it really need to be nolathane? how much longer will nolathane or similar last? They are many times the price of standard replacement new ones.

nah just the bushes that you press in are about $60

[savage1987]

ok cheers mate will see what i can find

[warbo13]

can someone tell me wether it is hard or not /how to change rear upper control arms ? is just bolt off bolt on? i was told to jack the car up put stands under it then put the jack under the diff to take the wait, the simply change 1 side at a time is it this simple? the machanic i go to said it doesn't take him long to do it. but i'm a massive tight ass and i'm wanna give it a crack.
any suggestions please

[savage1987]

yep it should be that simple. very straightforward to change the whole arm over. I have to do it soon, should fix my axle tramp a little. I'll get there one day

[VN_chris]

what type of mini spool is it in the pictures, will a $90 ebay 28 spline mini spool do the job?

[savage1987]

yes. they are just a lump of metal that isn't likely to fail before your axles do

Mine's a $90 ebay special Romac

[Calaber]

i'll add my little bit. i had trouble trying to crack the crown wheel bolts, as i couldnt find a decent clamp anywhere. ended up geting luke to help me, but later on i found a good way of doing it.

1. Place a spare tyre on the ground, facing up.
2. Place on axle on the wheel.
3. Put the diff centre on top of the axle.

This might be all you need to get enough leverage to crack the bolts, but if its still move abit you can do a little more.

4. add another axle on top of the diff centre. It should look like an assembled diff without the housing now.
5. place a crowbar or something similar in between two of the studs on top, and get someone to hold it.

you should be able to crack the crownwheel bolts using just a breaker bar. comes in handy if you dont have a rattle gun

Stocky

There is an even simpler method of cracking these bolts. Just use an good quality ring spanner and crack them before removing the diff centre from the housing. If an auto trans car, place trans in park, on a manual, put it into gear. This should lock the diff from spinning whilst you crack each bolt. You need to make it easy and have someone to select neutral in between cracking each bolt so that the centre can be spun to the next accessible bolt.