Anyone ever swap these out themselves? Having issues with setting bearing preload; according to the FSM, it should be 9-12 in-lbs but I’m getting around 33 in-lbs.
Background story: I took my diff housing with just the pinion in it to be pressed out and reinstalled with new pinion bearings at a local machine shop since I don’t have a press or the tools to remove the bearings. Instructed the dude to replace everything in the same fashion as it came off, so I’m assuming that the shims are not double-stacked on the rear side or switched where the front shim is now in the rear and vise versa, if that is even feasible from the OD’s of the shims.
I’ve also been informed on some forums that you’re supposed to replace the spacer sleeve denoted as #38165 in the pic below.
Anyone know if there’s any truth to that? Provided that these deform and compact a little bit when seating the bearing, how do you know which sleeve length to get since there are multiple lengths to choose from Nissan?
TIA
The shims are for adjusting pinion depth not bearing preload,if you have too much bearing preload that means you have tightened the pinion nut too much and put a little too much squeeze on the sleeve.It’s not a huge amount of preload so if you back the nut off a tiny bit you should easily get in the range you are looking for.I assume when you are measuring the preload you are making sure the bearing is well lubricated to make sure you get an accurate torque measurement.
Just spoke to a dude at Texas Drivetrain Performance. I guess those sleeves deform every time you seat the pinion and need to be replaced after every time you pull the pinion. I’ve backed off the nut, pounded down the pinion, and still no change in torque, its likely due to me not changing out the crush sleeve or that spacer as Nissan calls it. And yes, the bearing had gear oil sitting on it for about a week after tightening the flange nut and before I attempted to measure the preload.
Have you done this before? Curious to know what kind of deformation takes place when torquing the flange nut since there are six different sized crush sleeves available from Nissan. FML. I was thinking of measuring my old one, then finding the closest length sleeve that Nissan offers. Good plan?
I would say measuring the spacer and getting the next longer size should be a safe plan because I don’t feel the preload you have now would really be considered extreme.Most of my experience has been with Ford differentials but have done one Nissan diff and they are all basically the same.I don’t use a torque wrench to check bearing preload, I use my hand and experience.Just keep in mind you can always crush the spacer more but you can’t uncrush it.
Thanks black.
And for those who care, I’ve found that the S-chassis R200 diffs and earlier do NOT use crush sleeves. The reason being that it has a front shim to set the preload, unlike the newer R200’s found in, for example, the Z33 models, hence why they only have one shim and it’s behind the 2nd pinion bearing. Setting preload has to do with this front shim and not the spacer in the pic I’ve uploaded previously (part 38165). I have punched out my pinion and will be buying the next size larger spacer and next two or three sized shim in front of the bearing just in case. I feel that the shim is the culprit but since the spacer is only $11ish, I’ll gladly pay that just in case the preload is really THAT far off.