Offroad-Express

Following on from this thread http://www.offroadexpress.kiwi/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=43792

I now found out both my diffs are open. What are my options for improved traction? Have heard of auto lockers but have also heard some people calling them 'suicide lockers' what's the deal anyone running them ?

Don't really want to go down the air locker road, not for this truck anyway.

Track down a rear LSD, there's usually a few floating around Trademe. They help these trucks A LOT, even you tighten em up they work even better!

and you can put a auto locker in the front of these, and you won't even know it's there (apparently) until you put it in 4WD.
With a LSD in rear, it will be a nice drive on road still, and it will be a weapon off road with the LSD and the front locker.
eaton do an E-locker for them too, so you can lock up the front axle via switch, as opposed to having a compressor and airlines(ARB).

They do an E-locker for the R180a?? wicked, if true. Thought it was only the R200a. Mine has a r180a in the front

Well good news, finally. After getting scammed on the open diff i was told was LSD, I bought another entire parts truck. Look under rear, H233b sitting there, with a nice big clear LSD STICKER!! Parts truck starts and drives fine (just rusty as guck), kick it out in the paddock, LSD works very well, both spinning up!

So ill give the rear auto locker a miss for now, and put in this LSD.

now I should have TWO H233b HG48 4.88 geared OPEN diff heads available for sale now, along with an entire diesel parts truck if anyones looking for parts pm me.

stovanovich wrote:Track down a rear LSD, there's usually a few floating around Trademe. They help these trucks A LOT, even you tighten em up they work even better!

Yeah got one off trademe, turned out to be an open diff.

keep the 4.88 ring gear and pinion(if you got the pinion too) then bolt it to the LSD,(when ya find one)

ARB do a locker for the 180 aswell.

found an LSD, on parts truck. forgot to check if 4.3,4.6 or 4.8 but is def HG4*

so if its not 4.8 like i need can I get a dif shop to put the 4.8 gears from my open diffs onto this new LSD?

you can do it yourself if the missus doesnt mind having crown wheels in ya freezer over night.

if you haven't got a freezer you can always drop the crownwheel into a pot of boiling/hot water or an oven to expand it to get it to slide onto the carrier easier

ill just tell her its a new brand of hash browns

How much mechanical expertise is required here? - I have all the fsm's but got to the diff center section and too-hard-basketed it.

some people get away with successfully swapping over a C/W & P without really knowing what they are doing and others turn them into failed diffs or grenades there's plenty of shit about setting up diffs on the net but its still an acquired skill gained through experience to get the preload, backlash and gear meshing setup right, theres a few diff guys out there that have done so many they do them all by feel while they're rolling a smoke but otherwise you'll need an internet connection, a dial gauge, some of that flash yellow paint, something to measure the pinion preload, a bunch of different thickness shims if your pinion uses shims, a new pinion seal, a torque wrench, mums oven or a heatgun and a decent rattlegun and air supply to go with it its worth checking all the bearings while its apart, they're never easy to change so if your not expecting to do another 400,000kms on your truck a bit worn is usually ok if they're not too far gone or rooted use a punch to mark all the parts as you remove them the caps have to go back onto the same side and around the same way they came off

Just swap the 4.8 ring gear onto the lsd carrier and install into the 4.8 housing.
No need to touch the pinion and no freezer/heat needed if you tighten the bolts in sequence according to the FSM.
When removing the side bearing caps leave the lock tab in place and just put them back in the exact same position.
There seems to be a lot of variation w side gear backlash from the factory with these H233 diffs. It'll be fine if you put everything back together exactly the same. Pay attention also to the orientation of the side bearing caps.

Its not like a little toyota hilux diff where the thing will blow up unless the settings are pinpoint accurate.

problems would arise if lsd carrier is a few thou offset from the original messing up the crownwheel to pinion mesh

True but having played w a few of these its surprising how much variation in CBPL there is from the factory.

You're right tho jase, in an ideal world it should be reset according to factory specs.

In case anyones interested, parts truck has a few strange bits on it, some kind of aftermarket package wondered if anyones come across this before. Unfortunately most of them have rusted out to almost certain death.

Tuned by RAZO?



Wooden gear shifter, transfer shifter, handbrake and sport steering wheel.



Lift kit incorporating adjustable panhard rod, i suspect lengthened shocks and springs.



Some kind of different upper control arms, and had these blue torsion bars on it too didn't grab the photo though.



JAOS (japan auto offroad supplies i believe) front bullbar, the jaos is just visible behind the number plate.

Blue torsions might be Calmini, IT's obviously had a lift at some stage
the UCA's are worth something to the right buyer(owner of a WD/D nissan chassi. so would be the adjustable panhard...probably even fit the patrol/safari.
I'd say the bushes would be in need of replacing though.

RAZO is(for lack of a better analogy) basically like the HDT of holden australia, but from japan, they would take stock standard production cars and add there own styling and bling bits to them..such as faux wood grain dash leather seating stereo's adding strut braces mag wheels trim kits etc some times even going as far as changing out engine components such as turbo chargers or engine ecu's for one with a bit more up n go.

they pretty much have been known to tickle up most jap car brands.

Exactly how rusted are the UCA's? Also I know a great home for that panhard rod and the UCA's if they haven't disintegrated

Going to whip them all out , clean them back, rust kill , zinc prime, and repaint. Hopefully get them looking decent.

Thanks for the info !

Hamboy will see how I'm feeling when I've cleaned them up

Those UCAs look suspiciously like Rough Country ones, which are exactly the same as the Superlift ones I've been running except they are not zinc coated.

If they are indeed RC UCAs, they work extremely well and are made out of 1/4" wall DOM tubing, virtually unbreakable. Give more droop travel, correct upper balljoint angle and easy alignment too.

lax2wlg wrote:Those UCAs look suspiciously like Rough Country ones, which are exactly the same as the Superlift ones I've been running except they are not zinc coated.

If they are indeed RC UCAs, they work extremely well and are made out of 1/4" wall DOM tubing, virtually unbreakable. Give more droop travel, correct upper balljoint angle and easy alignment too.

Mean hope i can get em looking fresh

Mean hope i can get em looking fresh

Make sure you post up here if you wanna sell them off (hell I'll even take em off your hands as is before you clean them up! )

Im also very keen if you end up selling them

Lax do they run the standard bushes on these uca's or will I need to track down aftermarket ones

they are different, BNT and autolign sell them about 40 odd dollars for both sides, its a generic bush but does the same job, better then the ones they try to sell you for them out of the states, 63 dollars US

fh2014 wrote:Lax do they run the standard bushes on these uca's or will I need to track down aftermarket ones

Yes they run standard bushes.

I used genuine Nissan vulcanised rubber bushings because they last forever. They need to be pressed in.


Otherwise you can get Nolethane/some other aftermarket bush. They wont last as long, but there should be fittings on the arms for grease nipples. So you can keep the poly ones greased a lot which will reduce wear.

starting to think there wasn't a HG48 set with an LSD from the factory can anyone confirm of deny this?

Have found loads of HG46 trucks with LSDs but every HG48 I find is non-LSD. Also have now purchased 2 HG46 rear h233b LSDs, and both of them are no good - snapped spring plates. Are these still available from nissan?

I got a parts truck last year which had a 4.88 LSD in the stern. I bolted the ring gear to a Safari front carrier and installed a lockrite, then sold the LSD carrier to a guy who put it in the front of his Safari.

BTW the spring plates (the dished ones at the bottom of the stack) arent really necessary if you are modifying it into a spool. More important is that you have heaps of friction clutches and that they are in good condition.

Lax, do those OEM bushes have the tapered inner sleeve to match the Fulcrum(I noted the ones i got with the UCA's are), or do they rely on the captive end nuts to keep them in place?

Crash bandicoot wrote:Lax, do those OEM bushes have the tapered inner sleeve to match the Fulcrum(I noted the ones i got with the UCA's are), or do they rely on the captive end nuts to keep them in place?

Hmmm... not sure if they do. I remember that when I installed them, they pressed into the UCA and rotated freely on the spindle. I had to use my genuine HiLift jack to install them. I think the factory method is that they deform with wheel travel much like radius arm bushes.

I'm happy that they move freely on the spindle as this allows for easiest movement of the UCA and therefore articulation.

On a side note, one part of my long travel plan is/was (depending on if I still have the truck) is to fabricate some new UCA spindles from 4140 that are braced with L-brackets and include a greaseway for getting grease right into the pivot point that the bush rotates on.

The UCA spindle is a potential weak spot that could bend if hit hard enough from the sides, hence the brace idea. Similar to the Rancho UCAs that are now discontinued.



I have this whole LT thing in my head all planned out, including upgrading to Patrol CVs, and I really want to start the project, but alas I am in Japan. Shit maybe I should just ship it over here.