Aug 25, 2019

How to Break the Front Differential Off an RB26dett : The Gold Plated Drain Plug

By Sean Morris August 25, 2019 Big Bird, Featured, fluids, R33

Big Bird R33 GT-R racing at IDRC in Palmdale

So this is a story about breaking parts. And mechanics. The Nissan Skyline GT-R has a bunch of fluids in it. It is a bit more complicated than your normal car. Along with all the normal fluids, you also have the all wheel drive system, that has three extra fluid reservoirs/sumps.

Around 2000,Big Bird had been sitting around without an engine in it for a while, so we get a junkyard engine to put in the car. I wasn't doing a lot of work on cars then. MotoRex had hired a Japanese mechanic, and he was working on cars for us. He was an idiot. He is the reason that I really had to start swinging wrenches on these cars. Either way. He put the engine in the car, got it all ready for a drag racing event.

And then this happened. First pass, I line up the car, run down the drag strip on a test pass, at about 110 mph the steering wheel started shaking violently. I mean come out of your hand violently.

Slowing down at over 100 mph with the car feeling like it was coming apart is a bit sketchy. So I make it back to the pits, and start investigating the car. Where the front diff is on the engine/engine compartment its fairly hard to see. Even jacked up, hard to tell what is going on with it.

GT-R front differential with drain and fill plugs removed

The axles look fine, everything else seems fine, pull the diff drain, dry.

This is what happens, when you run a front differential dry in a GT-R.

I mean no residue of fluid dry. Nothing. Bone dry. I was going to kill the mechanic. I want to say, that was about the end of him working for us. To remind me, Ken had the oil drain plug gold plated.

I still have the gold plated drain plug.