Well I just picked up a 4.083 rear diff carrier from a 2005 king cab frontier (manual transmission, 4 cylinder engine) for $270 shipped from AZ to FL.

I'll update the thread when it arrives and tear down with pics. BTW I found this by searching car-part.com and looking up ring and pinion part.

If anyone is in the Portland, Oregon area theres a yard (on car-part, search rear axle) there with a whole 4.083 rear axle for $300. I tried to get them to pull the gears and mail it but they were being a little stingy about it. A Local pickup would work perfectly.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong... but I thought the ring and pinion gear from the V6 model frontier is the only one that will work on the 350z...??? I'm about 100 miles from Portland.. I may go check it out.

 

Nope its gotta be a 2005-2007 4 Cylinder, manual transmission, 4 door frontier. Only one that got the 4.083 gears b/c it needed all the torque it could get to move.

 

interested in outcome, update when possible

 

Congrats Ian!

-J

 

in for the win

 

hmmm, Good find.

 

Too bad I already bought mine

 

Gears arrived today and look in very good condition. They actually just sent the gears and open diff which took a good bit of work out of it. Unfortunately my bearing remover broke trying to get the main pinion bearing off. Thats what you get for chinese made junk. So now i've got to wait to get a good quality seperator......





4.083 Pinion on left, 3.5 Pinion on right





Busted POS Chinese Seperator

 

Got the main pinion bearing off the 4.083 pinion. In the process of honing out the original bearings from the 350z diff for slide on-off setup bearings.

My brake cylinder hone does not seem to be doing much good on the hardened inner bearing races.
Gonna go after them with a Dremel and sanding rum which should do the trick.

 

lol crazy man crazy. good luck with building your dif.

 

I took the time tonight to make setup bearings out of the old pinion bearings. A dremel tool with a drum sander attachment at high speed took about 2 mins per bearing to open them up just enough for a slip fit. I smoothed the ID surface with a brake cylinder hone.

Gonna go ahead and see if the shims i have now will produce the correct backlash and gear pattern. Gotta wait for uncle sam before i buy the LSD.

 

Any new updates...

 

well so i've put the gears in with the old open diff and backlash is within spec. Gear contact pattern is looking okay.

I will be writing up a very detailed DIY on shimming/setup of the final drive gears when I can get the quaiffe purchased. May not be for another month or so.

 

So the gears (4.083) from a 05-07 4cylinder manual 4door frontier will fit in the 350z diff?
What about the diff from an 06 auto G35?
Do any of those trucks come with an LSD?

 

You are correct on the gears from the from the frontier.

Fitting in an auto pumpkin I'm not sure.

I don't believe any of the trucks came with an LSD any better than the oem VLSD, and the fact that the 4.083 gears are the only ones that fit a Z I doubt it.

 

Pretty sure my auto has an open with 3.5s
Looking to get 4.1s with a limited slip