who's taken a rearend or rear lsd apart??

[jesepes]

My question is actually: What makes up the rear LSD in my 92 AWD? Does it use separate viscous fluid or just the gear oil in the housing? I am cleaning/rebuilding my rear end, and am hesitant to remove the 6 or 8 bolts that hold the diff. together. I'm not sure if I should expect a simple open set of disks that the gear oil goes in to be used as viscous fluid or a sealed unit. I have already opened the rearend and taken it apart, it's just the carrier/differential that I'm wondering about. I've never heard of VC's using the gear oil as a medium and it only occured to me that this one might because there doesn't appear to be a separate sealed unit in there. Any help will be great. BTW if anyone has bought bearings and seals for their rear end, how much did you pay and where from? Who has good prices? Thanks a lot.

 

[ACM]

The OEM rear LSD is to all intents and purposes the same as the centre LSD, the main difference being that the viscous coupling is integral with the differential assembly, whereas it is outside the diff in the case of the centre diff.

Within the differential, the left axle is splined to the VC housing, and the left side gear (that meshes with the spider gears) is integral with the VC case. The right axle splines into the right side gear in the normal manner, but then extends through the centre of the diff and engages with the inner splines of the VC unit.

As with a conventional diff, when the wheels rotate at different velocities the side gears and spider gears all start rotating as well, relative to the diff casing. When this happens, the two 'sides' of the VC are forced to rotate at differing speeds as well, and the VC resists this rpm differential.

The "enthusiasm" with which the VC resists differential rotation is controlled by the shear properties of the fluid inside, the number and spacing of the plates, and the design of the plates themselves.


Hopefully this is a reasonably clear description ?

Charles