Friday, Jul 13, 2007 at 18:58
Hey Stefan,
No such thing as a stoopid question mate.
A limited slip works via "clutch plates" (let's call them friction plates) inside your diff housing, either side of the centre of the diff, the more power applied into the diff via the drive shaft ie. putting your foot down, the more pressure is applied to the friction plates forcing the plates together, much like releasing the clutch when you drive off but in reverse (they're pushed together rather than being clamped together by a pressure plate on release of your pedal) unlike your clutch plate these friction plates operate in a bath of diff oil therefore never really locking up like your clutch but always having a certain amount of slip, ie. limited slip.
The mechanism pushing the plates together only moves so far no matter how much power is supplied, therefore only putting a certain amount of pressure onto the friction plates, by "tightening up the diff" they put an extra spacer plate at the end of the line of friction plates, by doing so they're closing
the gap between the plates marginally so when the same amount of pressure is applied the plates are pushed together more tightly as they they have less distance, or room to be compressed in.
Hope all this makes sense, I'm not real good at explaining technical things, I know how they work but always seem to have trouble putting it into words :-)))
And, yes, it is a job for the experts.
Cheers Mate
Pezza
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