Hi,

I recently purchased a Quaife diff and 4.08 ring and pinion, along with the bearing and seal kit, for my '08 base 6mt. I took the pumpkin and all of the parts to a local shop to have it swapped out.

He called me this morning and told me that Nissan does not make a shim big enough to set the backlash. I didn't have time to get there before they closed to see exactly what he was talking about. He seems to think that I have the wrong parts? Any ideas on what to look for / tell him when I stop by on Monday?

 

WHen you get shims from the dealer you usually get a kit with various sizes that you add up to what you need. Ask him how much he needs and go get that combination from the dealer.

 

I have had it in my 06 for over 20k. He must not know what he is doing.

 

That's kinda what I was thinking, but he seemed to act like there was only supposed to be one shim.

So far I am thinking that taking it to him was a bad idea. I am printing off the final drive section of the service manual right now so I can bring it to him. I figured a shop that specializes in transmissions/drivelines would know what they are doing. You would think within the last 30 years he had been there, he would have seen that diff before. I know nissan uses it a lot, at least in similar configurations. He also told me that the nissan dealer would have to order the shims. Wouldn't that be a part they should keep in stock?

 

ding

 

the shims are sold individually, there is no kit

shouldn't who have it in stock? The transmission shop? No. The dealership? Not likely...it's not a common thing for people to have to service in the first place

As for the differential being common among Nissan's, it isn't at all actually

as far as did you get something wrong? Who knows, gotta post up what exactly you got in the first place (ie part #'s)

 

Recently did this exact same install myself 2 months ago.

I waited over 2 months to get the required shims thru courtesyparts.com bc they were on backorder. I bought a spare open diff before the quaife or gears so my car wasn't down.

Looking back I should have just got a machine shop to make the shims.

Now the car has traction, awesome gearing, and completely silent even with solid diff bushings.

 

Well I stopped by this morning to see for myself. He seems to be doing everything correctly, but I guess he was confused because they don't sell a kit, only individual shims. He didn't want to have to charge me more if he bought the wrong size and had some left over. I could care less about an extra $20-40 at this point. I gave him the service manual for it so hopefully everything comes out right.

Glad to gear that ian99rt. I also went with the whiteline bushings.

 

Hopefully he gets really close when estimating the right sizes.

I had 2 sets of shims, 4 total for the side bearings, and 2 pinion shims .

I was able to get the correct side bearing preload with two shims I already had, measured backlash(too much) and checked contact pattern. Pattern was a little out so the pinion shim needed to thinned and i was on my thinnest pinion shim.

I then swapped the side shims, side to side, and rechecked backlash. This time it was a little too tight. So I had 2 different shim arrangements with 2 different backlash measurements.

Its not a perfect estimation but i divided the difference in backlash measurements by the the difference in shim thickness on the back side of the ring gear. This gave me a rough inches of backlash to shim thickness above the thinnest side bearing shim (was over $100 in shims).

I still bought one size bigger and one size smaller for each side (4 more) and the next 3 smaller pinion shims. With that i had a combination that lined up perfectly with contact pattern and right in the middle of the backlash allowances. I had zero gear wine after about 100 miles of break in.

If this is a bit confusing i'm sorry, I can better explain if needed.

 

Gotcha. He didn't mention anything about pinion shims, just the side shims. I was hoping maybe the originals were the right size. I really hope he gets it dead on with one set of shims, but I told him it was ok to buy a size either way just to be sure. I should have mentioned that I have access to a machine shop and I could machine some down if needed(depending on the temper of the shims). I guess that is the reason I took it to him in the first place; free time is hard to come by.

I will just be happy when it is all done. He seemed very knowledgeable when I talked to him, and was happy that I printed off the service manual for him. Hopefully the Nissan dealer (an hour drive away) gets the shims here quickly, and I have time to put it back together this week.

 

Hardness of the material woulnt matter if you find a mchine shop with a precision surface grinder.

If I can get to my storage unit tomorrow I can grab the shims I have and let you know which sizes I have.

The dealership 1 hr away may not do you much good getting the shims faster then courtesyparts unfortunatly.

 

I just left it up to him to order the shims. Hopefully I hear from him in the next couple of days. Thanks for your help.

 

Ok, diff is done, I am almost finished putting it back in the car. Stupid question though:

After I mounted it back in place, I realized I had two large washers/spacers that I believe went between the diff and the front bushings. I assume I need to reuse those, right?

 

If your keeping the oem bushings, yes you need them on the bottom side of the diff

 

Should take barely minutes to put those in. Seconds with an impact gun.

 

Yeah, they were easy to put in. I fell on the ice before I started and hit my head pretty hard. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly. I finally have everything back together. Everything seems pretty smooth, but due to the ice, I couldn't get up the hill to leave my driveway. Results to come as soon as the ice melts.

 

I couldn't be any happier with this new setup. It feels quite a bit faster, and definitely grips way better. It feels much more controllable, especially coming out of corners. I can hear a very slight whining noise, but I probably wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't listening for it. Hopefully after a few hundred miles it will go away completely. I also have no wheel hop now. It was very bad before, almost violent at times. Very smooth now. Well worth the time and money.

 

IMHO this was the best single mod I did.

 

Ditto

 

I've only driven 4 miles so far, but I will have to agree. Nissan should make them like this from the factory. At least as an option, or just the Nismo edition. 100mph seems to come up much quicker now. Now time to do sway bars and coil overs, and hopefully I will be happy for a while.