ital quaife lsd questions

[liveaxle]

Hi, I just chewed up the crown wheel and pinion in my caterham ital live axle equipped with quaife lsd. I have a few questions and would appreciate any help.

1. Is it possible to find a stronger crown and pinion like quaife? Can't find any, and if I use standard ones again the same thing is going to happen I guess.

2. Can I change the crown and pinion myself or are there any setup issues?

or should I go for an english axle straight away? But this is a more expensive and time consuming route.

[pikeyboy]

What engine/ how much power are you tring to put through the ital and what tyres are you using?

[liveaxle]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I'm running on a crossflow 1600, big valve 244 cam, maybe 135 bhp.
Tyres 205/65R13 rear, 185/70R13 Front.

I thought the ital should handle more power.

[pikeyboy]

Should be good for that, thought you might be running a duratech or something. Sticky tyres won't help the situation though. I think there's a triumph specailist that everyone says is the place to build these up for you, IIRC its jigsaw racing.

[liveaxle]

yeh thanks for your info, but I'm from Malta, thought maybe I can exchange the crown and pinion myself from the old diff. Just handed everything over to my mechanic now as I do not think this should be done by an amateur.

Still have to exchange to an English diff one day....

[Eugene7]

I have 210 BHP Zetec, still with Ital axle.

It has the Quaife LSD.

Never had a problem

[Noger]

Jigsaw seem to be stronger.

It may have been oil starvation ? You can overfill or baffle.

[liveaxle]

It wasn't oil starvation. The crown and pinion broke on first gear on the lights on the road (new tarmac), but the caterham wasn't even loaded, just me in it, which I weigh next to nothing.

[Noger]

Yup. That's how mine broke. Too enthusiastic at Brands Hatch. No apparent problems Drove home. About a mile away from home I pulled away from some lights and clunk.

[pikeyboy]

With that power and weight I doubt it was an instantanious failure, overload condition.

Are the teeth discoloured, been running hot? Are there any contact witness marks to indicate poor contact pattern ie clearance not correctly set? Can you see any remains of the frature surface?, if so are there any beach marks you can track back to the initiation point?

PM me some pics if you like I'll have a look for you, my day job is partly industrial gear box failures and condition.

[liveaxle]

Thanks for all your replies. boy I will try and post some pix tomorrow as the diff is at the mechanic, should be done by tomorrow though.

[liveaxle]

Hi sorry for the delay. Having trouble uploading pictures now, donno why.
As far as I can see there are no discolouration marks on the the teeth.
A few whole teeth came off and others are just mashed up.

Diff is ready now, used the old crown wheel and pinion that I had and put them on with the lsd.
Had to shave off the crown wheel from the inside for it to fit the lsd. Shaved off a fraction of a mm.

Fitted new seals and needed a new wheel cylinder as there was a small leak.

Just need to put it in place now... oh ye and put some oil in

[pikeyboy]

liveaxle said:

Hi sorry for the delay. Having trouble uploading pictures now, donno why.
As far as I can see there are no discolouration marks on the the teeth.
A few whole teeth came off and others are just mashed up.

Diff is ready now, used the old crown wheel and pinion that I had and put them on with the lsd.
Had to shave off the crown wheel from the inside for it to fit the lsd. Shaved off a fraction of a mm.

Fitted new seals and needed a new wheel cylinder as there was a small leak.

Just need to put it in place now... oh ye and put some oil in

Glad you have it sorted, gear failures are difficult to trace since the debris causes so many subsequent failures often the intiation point is mashed. Good sign if no teeth were discoloured.