I've heard of people adding clutch disks to a Trac-Lock diff to make it hold better. I was wondering how do u do it, and how do u get the spiders back in after u do?

I have a general idea how to add the disks. I THINK u take the curved spring plate out, and add clutches, and thoes other disks untell its the same hight as it was with the spring... Is that right? Or am I WAY off? I have pics of the parts I'm talkin about but can't post them tell tomorrow afternoon.

 

You need new clutch plates. The plates come from the dealer. You need two sets. For the performance rebuild, you'll need three sets. The standard rebuild uses the plates in the following order: CPPCPPC (where C is a clutch plate and P is a driven plate). To get harder lockup, change the order to CPCPCPC. You buy the third set to get more clutch plates.

Presoak the plates in gear oil overnight. If you don't do this, you'll get some SERIOUS locking action for quite a while until the clutch plates absorb the oil.

You may want to grind the friction material off the clutch plates and stuffing as many plates in there as possible. You might like the results, and it's cheaper too, you can just use your old plates and buy one more set so you'll have enough plates pack the limited slip tightly.

I assume you know how to remove the differential cover and the axleshafts. If not, you got some troubles. Lol.

You need to get the s-spring out, which you can do with vise-grips and maybe whacking the s-spring with a soft hammer. If you have the stock rear gear, you shouldn't have problems getting the s-spring out.

People with 3.55s may have trouble, because the ring gear may be too thick for the s-spring to clear.

Once the s-spring is out, you need to rotate the spider gears out. The easiest way to do this is by putting the tranny in gear and inserting an axleshaft to apply torque. Be sure to keep track of the spider gear bearing cups. After that, the side gears just come right out. Remove all the plates, but leave the shims in. Put your new plates in, and put the side gears back in. Now comes one of the tricky parts: getting the spider gears back in. First let me mention that ford has a special tool to measure the clutch pack and tell you what shims you need to use. You don't have to use this. Generally, if you can get the spider gears to rotate back in with their bearing cups, it won't be too tight. Both spider gears need to rotate back in at the same. As before, use an axleshaft to make the side gear rotate so you can get the spider gears back in. It may take you several tries. If you can't do it at all, take out the side gears and remove shims.

There are 4 plates which are splined to the spider gear which drives the axle. These are the "driven" plates. they're also bare steel. The "friction plates" are the "clutch plates". The thickness of the clutch stack matters. If it is too tall, you will not be able to get the cross pin into the diff. Before you go through the hassle of re-installing the "S" spring, make sure you can get the cross pin into the diff with the axles and c-clips in place obviously. Before you reinstall the S-spring, measure the clearance between the cross pin and the axleshaft ends. ford specifies 0.005"-0.030". A good set up would probably be around 0.0025" on both sides. If you have zero or slightly negative clearance initially, you can simply used sandpaper on the ends of the axleshafts to remove a few thousandths. It doesn't take much sanding at all. You shouldn't go much lower than 0.0025" clearance, because when the parts get hot, they'll expand and clearances will shrink. you don't want negative clearance - that can lead to broken parts.

You might even want to try installing 5 clutches per side in your traction-lock. Here are a few quick tips to do it.

Separate the pacs by side.

Grind all of the friction material from 5 clutches (requires extras)

Eliminate extra spacers. Configure it as follows : clutch/spacer/clutch/spacer/clutch/spacer/clutch/spacer/clutch, do not use any shims.

Re-assembly will be tight. Walking the side gears in will require taking up slack in the cluch pac by prying outwards on an axle.

Insert crosspin, and retaining bolt / pin. The cluch pacs will be pre-loaded somewhat by the crossbolt. it will be *very* tight.

When reinstalling the spider gears, make the diff as tight as you can make it and still be able to rotate the spider gears back in by hand. If you have to use a wrench or crowbar to get the side gears back in, that's too tight. This means you are going to wind up with a spool. Reduce the stack heights on both sides, and try again. you should be able to rotate the spider gears back in by hand. I'd try changing the driven plates first, as you considered doing. If that doesn't work, take out the shims. Some people do not use shims at all and it seams to work fine. You might find, depending on how your are setting up your traction-lok that you can't even get close to getting the spider gears in if you use the shims. It might even be too tight without the shims! Trial and error here.

Note however, you don't have to put the S-spring back in. Some people leave it out so that under zero-power conditions, the unit will differentiate more freely. If you leave the S-spring in, you'll always have some drag from the pressure of the S-spring. Others have been known to put in stiffer S-springs, which you can get from the dealer if you know what you have from the beginning.

I don't know if this modification works or not because when you're on the gas, the mechanical force on the clutch packs resulting from applied power will far exceed the force produced by the S-spring. You're going to have more drag under zero-power conditions, such as corner entry, which will result in more understeer from the rear wheels trying to go straight. The main benefit of the stiffer S-spring is that the increased preload makes it easier for the differential to lock up under extreme low-traction conditions.

If you want the S-spring back in, you can compress it with vise-grips and tapped it back in with a rubber mallet. It may takes a few tries to get it in. After that, put the cross-pin back in. Don't forget the cross-pin locking bolt! Use loctite on it - you definitely do not want the cross-pin to come out.

No special tools are required. You'll probably have some chatter for a while, but it will quiet down after about a week's worth of driving. If you find it to be too tight, add some friction modifier.

Do you need to use the friction modifier?

The purpose of the friction modifier is to REDUCE, not increase, the friction between the plates. You will need "some" friction modifier. If you rebuild a t-lock without friction modifier it will sound like you left a wrench in the diff when you try to turn a corner. In extreme cases, it will be like driving with a spool. Very abrupt and unpredictable locking and slipping chatter in when cornering. Start with 1/3 - 1/2 bottle and fine tune from there.

You might use regular 90W dino oil and 1/2 bottle of friction modifier to keep the noise down but without sacrificing grip. Don't have any basis for this other than some people have tried it and it's working. You also might want to keep the old clutch plates since you may not always have the proper shims. Keep swapping old plates and new ones, and any shims in the kit, until you can barely get the assembly back in the case. Then you know it's tight. You don't have to rely on the s-spring to preload the clutch stacks.

This is true for 4 pack systems, as well as 6 pack units. I have seen up to eight clutches in a pack.

 

Well here's the deal, cross pin held in by rollpin(not a big deal) there is no S spring, there are clutches on both side gears, and I couldn't get the spiders out by hand, I had to use a prybar. I have pictures I will post later today, I can't get them to upload from my BB.

 

The 3 differnt disks in there my finger is on the "spring" disk. Clutch disk has a "swirl" on it, and the drive disk has lines across the radius...

Both side gears right after I pulled them out. Just them, a set of spiders and a cross pin in there.

How it came out of the diff.

Stacked disks and clutches no spring plate

 

Only thing is I can not get the spiders back in, I might take a clutch out, and see if that helps, but I don't know.

 

I've never seen a S spring in a Trash Lock either ?

 

The smaller units with a cross pin bolt (obviously not D60) use a spring. Small pickups (like ranger) had them, and these little ones had different springs.
I dont like this LS unit. I have busted every one I have ever built.
For my applications (front D60's) the Power-lok is the only LS worth using.

Has the "stacked heigth" been measured?

 

The stacked hight after I took out the spring plate and added the disks and clutches is really close to the same, I didn't take my micrometor to it yet though. But my guess I'd have to be a bit less without the spring plate, because it "gives" and the disks won't.

I know these are not the best LS out there, but its the stock stuff I have. Its for the rear of my 74 E300. It only has a 302 and some 235/85R16s on it. I just want it to grab better than it does right now. I'll f around with it some more tonight n see what I come upo with.

 

Well, after much frustration I got the spiders in, it is going to be one tight LS unit. I couldn't get them in be hand, or with prybars, bench vice and all that. I ended up bolting it back in the axle, and setting the parking brake, wrappin 2 inch ratchet straps around the brake drums, and puting the tcase in low, and the trans in 1st and bumpin the starter over to rotate the spiders into place. I could only get them about a 1/4 way in by hand. So I went that way. I added one clutch disk and 2 drive disks to each side gear after I took out the spring plate. Took some grinding on all the clutch disks to get the right thickness, but I finally got it, after I take it for a spin I'll let u guys know how stiff it is....

 

Well its one stiff LS unit. I only drove it a tad in town, but it will churp the inside tires when turnin corners. Here is a testin pic, I was tryin to pull stumps. Lol.

 

That thing looks fun! So, are the burn marks in the dirt from you? Looks like both sides are turning the same.

 

Yep the marks are from me.... I was goofin off. If u look close there is a chain hooked to that short stump.. Lol. I was suprized both front tires where spinnin most of the time too, that end is just a open diff....

 

Hahaha. I didn't realize you were pulling stumps. I saw the chain as soon as I read that.

I'll give you props if you pulled a stump. (Pics or it didn't happen.)
But its still a pile of ugly.

 

Well the stump in the pic, didn't come out. But I did get a couple other ones to pop out. They where kinda old ones, and busted off just below the ground. Lol

 

No no no. That won't work. Its still a pile of ugly.

Oh i've decided, it has to be a video to prove the pile of ugly is the thing that yanked the stump.