A little more progress on the weekend.
I worked out the sway bar connections. Machined up some threaded bosses then drilled the x bar on the arms and welded them in. The way they are set up gives 6 adjustment options with the rear bar. 3 hole positions and swapping the link from the inside to the outside changes the leverage the control arm has on the sway bar.
Next it's sand blast the control arms and the sway bar and powder coating.
Another job I'd been wanting to do was plumb the diff for an
oil cooler. I figured it would be better to do it now rather than risking damaging the finish on the chassis by pulling the diff later. The fittings can be capped off for the moment till I can get the pump and cooler mounted.
This is the drain fitting to pull
oil from the bottom of the diff housing.
This is the return. It's set up to pump the
oil directly onto the LSD center.
So why a diff cooler? The center is from a HSV GTS Commodore. They were optioned with 3.9 gears and a hydratrak center. It's an unconventional and pretty innovative LSD in my opinion. Instead of clutch packs it hooks both axles together via a vane pump. The unit is sealed and filled with a silicone fluid. Difference in wheel speeds causes the vane pump to pump the silicone fluid around inside it's housing through small ports providing resistance. Like a torque converter it reaches a stall speed where it cant pump any faster. The result is it's a speed sensitive LSD with a smooth progressive engagement.
The downside of the hydratrak is that excessive heat makes them stop working so track days etc can give them a hard time. The diff cooler should in theory keep it working under hard use.
They are a sealed unit but I found a couple of pictures of one pulled apart.
So now the diff is all machined I can clean it and repaint it and then reinstall it in the chassis. Hopefully get that done this week.
Cheers
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