Sealing the University Special Differential.

[Alex G]

I need some ideas for sealing the university special, we were going to machine our own housing however We feel this might be a better option to just use the fully assembled component as is. Any Suggestions welcome

[Alex G]

I need some ideas for sealing the university special, we were going to machine our own housing however We feel this might be a better option to just use the fully assembled component as is. Any Suggestions welcome

[kcapitano]

If you want to use the unit as you get it from Torsen then you're going to have more issues than just sealing it. I would think about your bearing arrangement and how you will transfer torque to the diff (unless you have already done so, in which case ignore me).

As for sealing the unit, you will probably need shaft seals (available from most bearing manufacturers) and some o-rings with properly designed grooves (machinery's handbook will help you out). I would consider machining a housing to sit the assembled unit into, but there are lots of ways.

Be very careful about making your own housing. My team made has been making custom housings for the Torsen differential for the past six or so years, and I have never seen one that worked well (although they all had similar flaws and the most recent blow up was my fault). I'm not saying don't do it, just do some research. I think there are some good threads on here about the Torsen, so give the 'find' function a try.

[Paul Achard]

What kind of problems were you running into specifically? We've been running a custom T1 casing for three years now and haven't encountered any major problems except for some leakage, but it'd be nice to know if we've been overlooking an important flaw...

[Alex G]

Well Im going to machine a part to mount my sprocket that will have splines on one end to mate with the Differential however how would you keep that part from leaking. I've been fumbling around with a few Ideas. like maybe press fitting the differential in this piece some how with some lock tight. I dont know if I'm making sense. the splines wont be press fit but the outer part of the diff housing will be. You guys think this might work?

[dmacke]

We have had issues sealing it. We went to the hardware store and bought large rubber tubing (similar to OD of diff). Then we fine tuned the ID of the tube for a tight fit. It's not pretty but it doesn't leak anymore.

[dmacke]

By the way we have ours in a custom 2 piece housing.

[kcapitano]

Our differential housings have primarily had leaking issues. All the housings have been 3 piece designs (middle holds element gears, left and right hold bearings for pillowblocks and prop-shafts). The leaking was because we bought what we thought were sealed bearings, they were not however, and the diff fluid leaked through the bearings. Why this problem persisted for three years is an entirely different matter... I would suggest using shaft seals to stop leaking around the prop-shafts. To seal the actual housing we have just used an o-ring.

This past year one of the crush washers between the side gear and the housing actually exploded. The shrapnel from the washer just about destroyed all the other gears and the diff seized. I'm not exactly sure what the matter was, but I'm pretty sure I timed it wrong.

Although now I am curious. Does anyone know if incorrect timing could generate enough force to explode a crush washer? We had the same failure two years ago (crush washer exploding) but we thought it was due to a manufacturing error, perhaps that wasn't the case?.

If people are interested I can post pics of the damage.

[Drew Price]

Shaft seals would definitely be the way to go, and if I were to do it again I'd go a very different route.

Ours just had o-rings between the housing shells, and I used grease to lubricate it to not worry about leakage. Not optimal, but it worked.

I put zerk fittings on the outside of the housing so for routine maintenance you just grease-gunned some Redline CV-2 into each port and forced the old grease out the other side.


You can see the bungs with the grease fittings welded onto the housing here:


http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v214/179/125/2413466/n2413466_33779128_6521.jpg