As we all know the belleville washers in the OBX diff seem to be cheap and prone to cracking. They won't stop the diff from working if they crack but they will stop it from working when one tire is completely spinning freely. this happens when one tire is off the ground or has extreemly poor traction like on ice. It also means that one tire CAN spin without the other catching in some cases.
These differentials are a torque biasing differential. If one tire has zero traction the other wont spin because zero times the torque bias is still zero. Granted this shouldn't be a common occurance but the washers are there to give you a phantom grip type effect in those cases and still allow some torque to be transferred to the non slipping wheel.
Here is a step by step process for replacing OBX belleville washers:
Here is a picture of the inside of the OBX with the upper worm gear, inner gears, and washers dissassembled:
Step 1: Place the thinner of the two gears inside the center retainer.
Step 2: Place the stacked washers inside of the gear. They should be stacked like this )()()(
Step 3: Place the thick gear over the washers (it will stick up past the top of the inner retainer if assembled properly to provide preload)
If you are talented you can put them all in at once. They will fit inside of the gears like this (notice the preload is there because the two gears are held apart by the belleville springs):
Step 4: Put the center worm gear back in.
Step 5: Put the top back on the diff
Note the dowl pin...
It aligns with this notch..
From the top it goes in the back side of the hole that is not like the others (around 5 o'clock in this picture)
Step 6: Put the bolts in and torque them down to 30 ft*lbs
(out of pictures for the thread...) I suggest putting the diff in a vice. The passenger side has a flat spot in it that can be used to hold it in place.
BTW: If you tear it down and wonder how it works I think this article By Dave Coleman of Sport Compact Car does the best job that I have seen of describing it: http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/pr...us_zx3_part_4/
Let me know if you have questions or comments.
If you want/need a set of washers just send me a PM and I can hook you up!
-Rich