Mark

i think about 8 times a yr i'm not posting any more on the subject

just let them try what ever they like


I have just had my gripper rebuilt after 6 yrs (ok 1yr off the rd)

when the Gripper was striped down what they found was just a broken top and bottom bevele plate nothing else the plates were still fine

anyway i spoke to Tom @ Gripper and said Tom ,"have you got a top and bottom belvel plates for my diff". he said "yes but they are alot thicker now due to these breaking premiture" I said " how much thicker are they " he Said well the other ones use to be 2 mm but these new ones are 4mm " I said "ok i'll have 2 and you know with these thicker belvel plates do i still keep the same amount of torque on the plates " he said yes , I said "are you sure because if these are thicker plates then obviously i'm going to increase the( preload) torque due to the fact that these bevel plates are thicker it's going to squash them tighter because theres an extra 4mm on the actual unit ...He said "it will be ok"

anyway I then sent these plates to T.R transsmisions in Dudley to rebuild the diff which he did fair plate to him

I said to Tony the guy who built the diff back up make sure thats it's set for ROAD use not track he said "ok i will he said how much torque on the plates for Rd" I said "what Tom @ gripper told me 80 "

I got the diff back and put it back in my car ok i was expecting it to be noisy for the first 300 mile and then normaly the noise goes away because of it been set for road

after i did a track day and about 300 rd miles the noise was getting louder and really screaching going around the corners at slowish speed and worse as the oil got hot (thats because the plates are too tight and they are trying to break free this would be ok for track or comp use )

I got fed up of the noise and took the diff back and sent it to Tom @ gripper to do it ... I said Tom this diff is well noisey and nothing like it was before He said leave it with me i'll sort it out ... I then said to Tom "not being funny and i know it's your make of Diff but 80 is far too much on the rd " Tom replys "leave it with me i will sort it out and change all the ramp angles put different plates to make it more rd freindly ..I said then to Tom please i you could i'm getting sick of taking this diff out

anyway i got it back of Tom @gripper fully rebuilt with new plates to suit as i was turning the diff it felt good and pretty easy to turn at the propshaft end fitted the diff back in and i have done 600 mile now and it's still the fooking same as it was before screaming like a bitch when turning

I'm going to see Tom and take him out in the car and see what he thinks

I know when we use to use the Z.F plated diff before we use to set them about 55/60 for rd use for the simple fact thats when set at 60 theres not that much preload on the plates (called progressive load) on the plates therefore when corning one wheel will spin slightly faster than the other and will stop the binding on the plates if my car was a full on track car the noise wouldn't bother me at all and i wopuld have it set for full on track use to get the most out of it

Tom did say to me if you have any probs just ring me

if he would have listened to me in the first place all he would have to do is set it to about 55/60 preload on the plates job done

now i got to take it out again and send it back never had this problem before


and after all this would i change this diff for a unplated one ,never in a million yrs it works well when right

marco