AP

When rebuilding a ball diff, and the instructions say to tighten it down until it won't turn when the outdrives are held in place, does that mean it won't turn "at all" or does it mean "won't turn"? I can't seem to get my diff tight enough that it won't turn " at all"So how hard should I try to get it to turn? Just casual effort, or all out are wrestling force to get it to turn? TIA

WC

iTrader: (28)

Minimum tightness for a balldiff is so that the balls won't skid on the rings. You should be able to jam the outdrives and then try to turn the centre part and it shouldn't budge.

(Yes you should be able to put quite a bit of strength into it; think of the forces when your car accelerates & brakes.)



Tightness after that is a tuning tool, how tight you run the diff will affect your car's handling. As you have discovered, you can screw it everywhere from the minimum tightness (above) all the way to fully tight and everything is jammed tight.

popsracer

VERY important to break-in the Diff and readjust afterwards or slippage is sure to occur.
The Team Losi site has a very good method for breaking in the diff(s).

AP

So you are saying that it should be so tight as to be impossible to turn the diff when the outdrives are held in place.

fatdoggy

Yes, when you build a ball diff initally the aim is for it to be tight enough so that it dosn't slip(i.e. hold the outdrives and try and turn the pulley) but also for it to be as smooth as possible(smooth as in hold the pulley and move an outdrive and it should move smoothly). When you tune diff's you may want the diffs to slip a bit, but for initial setup when working from scratch I'd say just set them up so they don't slip.