Ball Diffs... and how to make them nice..

Given the discussions I've seen here.. nobody here runs a full (meaning 1/12 or 1/10) size ball diff. The diffs in the mini-x don't have a belville washer (a form of spring) to take up the natural variations in the balls and diff rings.

Here's a handy solution... find some small rubber hose. Firmer is better, and cut a small slice off the end, forming a square edged o-ring. Or hit the hardware store and buy a small rubber or teflon o-ring for each diff screw. Place the rubber bit behind the thrust berring in the diff.. and viola, you have a spring, and instead of havint 1/8 turn between a locked up diff and spinning it to death, you have two or three full turns from super loose to super tight. And a good adjustment range of where the diff action i still there, and you can more easily adjust slippage.

the only cevat is that the spacer that normally goes on top of the screw.. is no longer the right size. I tend to use another peice of tubing as a spacer. My 1/10 scale cars had springs in the drive cups anyway, so i see this as another analgous modification.

Enjoy your smooth diff action my friend s ;-)

[binaryterror]

Great idea...

I'll definately try this

yaknow.. i'm rather suprised i haven't seen more responce on this ;-) Another thing to note. I have noticed the chrome peeling off the diff rings... that's a little disturbing... I think this was caused by running the diff too tight before the instalation of the rubber bits. I saw the chrome flakes while disassembling the diff to install the 'springs"

[tinyrc]

nerobro, very cool - can you post pics? Or even better, would you like to write an article? Thanks!

Sure can. I'll get on that tonight.