CV shafts in the works

[Dime Dave]

There is a kit that uses 930 sized CV joints, custom axles and adapters. 100% bolt in. Available from Wolf Creek Racing.

 

http://www.wolfcreekracing.com/wcrcvhalfshaftaxlekit.pdf

[thisismatt]

Icehouse,

 

I'm not sure how helpful this will be, since I intend to use 280zxt swing arms and don't have the CV flanges bolted to a stock 510 arm. At the same time, this is at stock location without any adjustments for toe, so I'm not sure how much inward the arms will move. That said, there seems to be a fairly good amount of room at the horizontal, tightest position. This is pictured with the long shaft.

 

 

Flipped around:

 

 

 

Short (~14 1/4") vs long (~14 5/8") 280zxt inner shafts:

 

 

My cleaned up diff:

 

 

 

At this point I don't think I'll even need to get the hardbody shafts...I think the 280zxt ones will work for me. I just need to get one more shaft to get 4 of the 6 bolt joint housings (have 3 280zxt shafts) and I need to go grab the metal end plates off the 720 joints since the 280zx ones all have that huge spring bump on them which won't fit into the diff flanges. Assuming the cv's are the same I'll probably just grab the 720 short shaft to make my 4th housing. Then order some new boot kits w/grease and decide how I want to fit the housings...either pull one tripod off or file the lips off one of the housings so that the tripod will pull through. I think this would work fine on the inner joint since the outside joints have the springs always pushing the shaft to the middle, or just tack weld after reassembly...or tack weld the tripod after pulling it, since I don't have any way of re peening the splines.

[Icehouse]

I though about using zx arms on my car for a while. My biggest complaint is with the "shock/coilover" location being approximately 2" higher my coilovers didn't lower my car enough. That with the 1/2 wider track and the toe issues I figured using the stock arms would be fine. They use the same wheel bearing which is weird.

 

So the zx short shart is 14 1/4" and the truck axle you found is 12.5" I can see an R200 fitting with that short of a shaft! especially with the zx arms :D :D I need to pic up a set of the truck axles!

 

 

Hopefully I will get my suspension back out again soon so I can start helping soon :D

 

 

P.S I really like the truck flange idea! I can see that adding even more room for axles.

[djlotus]

So the zx short shart is 14 1/4" and the truck axle you found is 12.5" I can see an R200 fitting with that short of a shaft! especially with the zx arms :D :D I need to pic up a set of the truck axles!

 

Lol. He said shart.

[thisismatt]

What coilovers are you using? I'm still trying to figure out what ones I want to go with.

 

Those are approximate numbers on the shaft lengths...I still had housings on both so I couldn't get a tape right next to them. I might be able to find someone to just pop open and look at the outer hardbody shaft joint to see if it would even be usable.

 

I wonder how much a machinist would charge to groove the zx shafts for snap rings instead of using the peened over splines or tack weld to hold the tripods in place...otherwise there isn't a good way to easily disassemble the shafts for boot replacement.

 

I'm not too worried about the zx arms. My rims are on the high offset side (+38mm rears I think) and fit well with them, and then I'm cutting off the stock bushings and putting on heim joints, so by screwing them in and out I'll be able to adjust toe, forward/reward adjustment of the arms, side to side fitment since the heims are narrower than the bushings so I can shim one way or the other with washers, and a simple slotted inside mount to adjust camber with no binding. I have all the parts, and modified the crossmember to accept the 5/8" bolts and slotted the inner mount.

[Icehouse]

I'm running T3 that are modified to go 2 inches lower, I used to have a picture of my car at full drop with the zx arms but can't seem to find it... I know you have seen my car before :D Me and Duke love them slammed :D So I couldn't really use the zx arms. With your wheel combo it will actually make it look good without running spacers.

 

I could probably get the guys at work to machine a grove in the axle's for me.

[thisismatt]

Yeah, I like how yours looks. Did you cut the stock upper spring perch off? I probably will since the zx arms don't have the spring cups so it bottoms out there first. I don't have tires on my wheels yet, though, so I don't know how far they'll even fit into the wells. Got some mini tubbin goin on, though ;)

[thisismatt]

zx cv rebuild info:

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=130694

[Pedro]

Matt, so those input flanges you have in that diff, what are they off? a 720 4x4 or something?

[thisismatt]

Yeah, but they should be the same on any 4x4 4cyl hardbody up to '97 or pathfinder up to '95, I just couldn't find any. This diff should be a 4.11, but I think the hardbody/pathfinder ones are 4.38.

[Icehouse]

I've been searching for a LSD for the R180, what a bitch! I called 3 places on friday with no luck... I did find out that cusco makes one (spendy) I also found this one, I'm going to call these guys on monday http://www.purenissan.com/r180_lsd1.htm hopefully they have them still. If they don't it looks like the cusco is going to be the only way.... :( I want to find a rear end before I get to carried away with finding the perfect CV shafts, It would suck to build some for the R180 and not be able to find a LSD and have to switch to the R200 and have the CV shafts to long! I will find out tomorrow.

[thisismatt]

I've been searching for a LSD for the R180, what a bitch! I called 3 places on friday with no luck... I did find out that cusco makes one (spendy) I also found this one, I'm going to call these guys on monday http://www.purenissan.com/r180_lsd1.htm hopefully they have them still. If they don't it looks like the cusco is going to be the only way.... :( I want to find a rear end before I get to carried away with finding the perfect CV shafts, It would suck to build some for the R180 and not be able to find a LSD and have to switch to the R200 and have the CV shafts to long! I will find out tomorrow.

They were available as of March 8th when I asked them. I'd like to order one as well, but with the current non-driving shape of my car it's hard to justify. The biggest justification is that they may become NLA...

[Icehouse]

I ordered one :) 550$ now to figure the CV's out before I get it in haha.

[hang_510]

youll be happier w/a new unit vs rebuilding a used one.

 

thats how i justified it :D

[thisismatt]

Okay, made another $25 donation to this project. FYI, the 720 axles appear to have the same size inner tripod joint & housing, but the outside joint appears to be a one piece/solid machined doohicky that goes into the housing...in other words, there's no splined portion on the outer end of the shaft. This doesn't rule out the hardbody/pathfinder shafts, since they have a different style outer joint with splined portion according to the service manual and a guy I talked to. But I still haven't found any locally, so if anyone else wants to give it a try that'd be great. I've found some people online with some they'd get rid of, but I don't think I need them for my project so I don't plan to persue those at this point...although on second thought I might out of my own curiousity. I'm open to donations, though :D

[Icehouse]

I guess I will have to invest in the next one :)

[Icehouse]

I found this R180 LSD also, who knows if the clutch pack will fit a standard R180 though... LSD

 

 

 

I don't know if I should be mixing up R180 stuff into our CV shaft thread :D

[thisismatt]

I saw that too, and emailed the seller. I'm pretty sure it won't work without the corresponding stub shafts which as far as I can tell are different...

[thisismatt]

I found this R180 LSD also, who knows if the clutch pack will fit a standard R180 though... LSD

 

 

 

I don't know if I should be mixing up R180 stuff into our CV shaft thread :D

Is it just me, or did the seller change the auction to now say "welded." Doesn't that defeat saying LSD :P

[Icehouse]

Okay, made another $25 donation to this project. FYI, the 720 axles appear to have the same size inner tripod joint & housing, but the outside joint appears to be a one piece/solid machined doohicky that goes into the housing...in other words, there's no splined portion on the outer end of the shaft. This doesn't rule out the hardbody/pathfinder shafts, since they have a different style outer joint with splined portion according to the service manual and a guy I talked to. But I still haven't found any locally, so if anyone else wants to give it a try that'd be great. I've found some people online with some they'd get rid of, but I don't think I need them for my project so I don't plan to persue those at this point...although on second thought I might out of my own curiousity. I'm open to donations, though :D

 

 

So what year hardbody/pathfinder axle should i try?

[thisismatt]

Should be any 4cylinder hardbody, or pathfinder up to 1995. The 6cylinder 4x4s have a R200 with different style shafts.

 

I just looked at the service manual I have and apparently I'm a total moron. I thought the R180 in the hardbodies was a normal longnose like in the 720, but it doesn't look like it is :o I feel dumb...glad I didn't buy one from someone and pay for shipping. In that case, I'm not sure if the axle flanges are the same...they're still the 6 bolt double grouped kind, but I don't know for sure that they're the same spacing radially. Still, the bare axle shafts might work...I dunno.

[thisismatt]

I completely disassembled my cv shafts today. Looks like the short shaft is 14 1/4" and the long is 14 11/16". Got all the crap soaking in a cleaner bath and got new boots w/grease for reassembly. The boots came with snap rings for the tripods, but my shafts were all just peened over. I want to get them machined for the snap rings, so I need to find someone to do that...I hate not knowing any good machine shops :confused:

[Icehouse]

Me and Frank my be buying a lathe if not I can always do it at work :D I got one of the guys teaching me :D :D :D

 

 

So are the shafts you have shorter??? I forget what our shortest measurement is.... haha

 

 

Can you believe that wolf creak has R180 LSD's for 300!! damn...... O well life goes on... I wonder if they are for the old Z diffs? If so I'm not so bumbed, paying more will save me work if they are for the old diffs.

 

 

I may have already said this but wouldn't it be cool if the truck flange that goes into the diff had a whole machined in it so it could be bolted into the subi 160 diffs. That would be great for my other car :D

[thisismatt]

yeah...I posted on the realm the wolf creek r180 lsd, but it's 110mm ID ring gear which is the old kind. The newer ones like ours are 115mm.

 

You can convert the snap in K R180 to use the bolt in stubs just by swapping some internal bits, so maybe you can do the opposite for the R160? Or get one of the subi r160s that uses snap in? Kamododragon on the realm was converting the bolt in stubs to work in snap in diffs, so I'm sure you could come up with something easy enough.

 

Shafts shorter? I was just tryin to give you a more accurate measurement of the bare shafts in case you came across anything else. Those are the normal 280zxt shaft lengths. I need to get my swing arms fabbed up with my heim joints, just haven't had the time/enthusiasm. I have a crappy work area, which basically means not enough space so I do most of my work outside, and this crappy cold & windy weather kills my motivation, not to mention blows away shielding gas...

 

Think I'm gonna need a spacer? :D

[thisismatt]

icehouse - get your lsd yet? :fu: