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Aug 25, 2019

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

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.

One gold plated front differential drain plug. From an R33 GT-R. The hole was so they could plate it. 


R34 GT-R recommended fluids and lubricants

More fluid information: https://www.gtrusablog.com/2013/06/preparing-nismo-nissan-skyline-gt-r-for.html

Buy USA Legal R32 and R33 Skylines at Importavehicle.com!
Buy-R.com for Nissan Skyline GT-R and GT-R parts.




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