Progress Thread Therapy Car-- Freshening Up the Lower Intake

Looks like I'm going to be replacing the clutches in my differential. On LMR's website they have 2 different sets listed. One is a little more expensive and is a Ford Performance unit. Any of you guys have an option on them. Is it worth it to buy the performance set?

No race car here! I'm more in the Karthief territory here. Break the back end loose every once in a while but that's it. I think I will just get the standard clutch pack and call it done. I had plenty of friction modifier in the oil when I put it back together. I think either the new oil wiped the clutches or I put to much modifier in it. Can you do that? Just to be safe I am going to use new oil when I put it back together. I do not plan on changing the spider gears unless someone can come up with a convincing argument to compel me to do it. Right now there isn't much backlash in the gears and the spider gears look to be in good shape. If by some miracle LMR or someone has them on sell I would consider it.

As for the speedometer drive gear. I'm going to pull it all back apart AGAIN. I plan on documenting the entire process and doing a write up on it if there is still interest. I'll focus heavily on the solo installation of the shifter shuttle of course.

I fully expect to find the new retainer in the tail shaft housing in perfect condition. Thats how I found the last one. I'm going to get a new retainer just to be safe though. When I installed the drive gear both times the tail or the retainer was pointed to the back of the car. Can the retainer be installed wrong or backwards? I dont understand why it keeps popping off. Maybe I'm installing the driven gear wrong. I dont know. Any advice is welcome. Both time that I installed the driven gear it popped right in no problem.

I ordered the clutch kit and new retainer. We'll see how long it takes to get here.

This is what greeted me when I got the tail shaft housing off the transmission.



I'm not sure why the gear came off. I find it interesting that the retainer stayed on the output shaft.

All cleaned up and ready to go back together.



I've got to decide what I need to do to make sure the gear will not come off before I put it back together.

This video illustrates exactly how I installed the drive gear the last time I did this. I went back and looked to see if I installed the retainer correctly, assuming he installed his correctly. I installed it such that the drive gear is slid onto the retainer going toward the transmission, so from the back of the car to the front. If I install it the other way I will have to slid the gear past the retainer then install the retainer and slid the drive gear onto it from the other direction. Maybe I just didn't get the gear properly seated on the retainer. There is an area toward the end of the retainer that is raised to catch the gear and hold it on the retainer. I might even try to bend that part up a little more so that it holds better. I even pulled on the gear before I put it back together to make sure it didn't move.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5CCzgTRnc4&t=382s


The only reason I'm posting all this is so that if someone else has trouble like this maybe they will find this information and it will help them fix the issue. Other than that it really isn't value adding.

I forgot to bring the shuttle to work today, so I'll bring it tomorrow and take pics when I make the detent retainer strap.

This got here a lot faster than I expected.



I guess I have something to do this weekend!

I think I understand what is happening. I bought a new drive gear retainer and tried to install the gear. Well actually the new new one broke when I tried to get the little part that holds the gear to bend out a little more.



Anyway. I put the original retainer in the gear. The little clip is able to hold onto the gear.



When I did the same with the newer retainer the little clip is trapped under the gear.



I dont know how much you can really see in this pic but the clip on the top is the new one and the old one is on the bottom. Hopefully you can see that the part of the clip that holds onto the gear is longer on the new clip and shorter on the old one.



The old one also stands up more to hold the gear better. Now I dont know if I want to try to use the old one or try to use the newer one. If I use the new one it will be very hard to install harder.

I ended up installing the gear using the old retainer. I've been warned not to do this so if I have to bust this thing open for a forth time I've only got myself to blame! The new clips just would not catch and hold the gear. Very disappointing. I went so far as to install the retainer backwards compared to how I've done it the last two times. I really yanked on it to try to get it to pop off the output shaft, but it stayed put like it should. I've really got my fingers crossed that I've done it right this time!

I got my widget for installing the shifter shuttle made.



Each one is a slightly different size. I'll use the one that holds it best.

I took plenty of pictures for the how-to thread I'll put together later.