02J/02R driveshaft flange confusion

[sambb]

I'm actually over on the Polo 9N3 forum with a Polo Gti but figured I'd get more bites here. The Polo 5 speed is an 02R but shares a lot of 02J parts in the box.
So I have 3 02R boxes. One has an 02J wavetrac built into it, the second an 02J Kaaz and the third which is in my new car has an SQS 1 way in it. All these boxes have 100mm driveshaft flanges as they all use 8mm driveshaft flange bolts rather than the 10mm bolts used on the 108mm flanges.
So when I was under the car the other day I noticed that both driveshaft flanges in the box in the car had about 5-7mm in/out play. That didnt look right to me so I checked my two spare boxes and their flanges had zero. These are the flanges used on my two spare boxes:

Attachment 52220
doubtful that both of the springs could break I thought maybe they'd been installed without the centre bolt to hold them in against the diff. So I dropped a driveshaft off and found that the centre retaining bolt was in and tight BUT the flange could move in and out and also had a lot of lateral play. I removed the loose flange and was surprised to see that it didnt have the brass collar that seats into the bearing or the spring fitted over the shaft. they looked like this:

At first I thought they might be flanges I'm not familiar with eg 108mm ones but they are definitely 100mm at the flange, and have the 8mm bolts. They have just been fitted naked without any of the spring set up or the brass collar/bearing.
No prolem I thought, i'll just grab one of the complete flanges off the spare box and swap it in, but they would not go in. After a closer look, the bearing that the output shaft slides into is different to those of every other 02R box I've ever seen. There is no bevelled surface for the brass collar to fit in against, just a smooth bearing inner.
Soooooo.......any ideas what the go is?????
. Its pretty clear that to get the 100mm driveshaft flanges to fit the new cars box they have just stripped them naked and with no spring tension the flange can slide in and out a certain amount on the internal sliding nut that diffs have. I dont know if the lateral play is due to these shafts not running the brass bearing collar or the bearing designed for them OR if with the output shaft bearings that are in this box its actually fine to run the driveshaft flange without the spring/collar and the lateral play is just coming from shagged diff bearings. I dont know how the oil seals havent flogged out yet but they'll be leaking soon.
I think the 02A's had a completely different driveshaft flange design with cups that went onto internal output shafts. But could the box have 02A bearings in it somehow? 02Js used both 100mm and 108mm flanges and I thought the gearbox side bearings for these were common but figured you guys would know better. For all I know in 02J tuning circles what I'm looking at is a done thing but was hoping for a little help.
thanks for any help
sam

sam

[HaydEn]

02A diffs are internally splined with a groove that the flanges push into and get locked into place with the ‘pin’ similar to most jap fwd/awd driveshaft setups.

Sounds like parts were just not replaced when reassembling with the new diff?


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[sambb]

So all the 02J driveshaft flanges you've seen come with the spring, cap and brass collar too yeah? there's not a style you've seen doesnt use them?
yeah its weird. with the driveshaft flange removed and you are looking into the box, the receiver for the output shaft is just completely different. The inner of the bearing is just a sleeve with a flat face. No step in it.
Guess I need to swap the box out. Really not something I wanted to do this soon which sux.

[HaydEn]

I haven’t pulled that many apart. But they all have had them.

If it doesn’t leak just leave it for now?


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[sambb]

yeah i'll leave it be in the short term. Arrgh I want to crack on and get it ready for the track and just didn't need anything else on the list but hey that's cars! I hate having question marks hanging over things

[simon k]

I don't understand how the centre retaining bolt could be in and tight but the flange be able to move in and out... when I installed my wavetrac I had to leave the spring and brass collar off but the flange is in and tight.

[sambb]

With my KAAZ equipped box, the driveshaft flange's centre bolt goes into a washer/nut inside the diff. Its threaded down its centre and slides. I canty remember but it may have been square or keyed so that you could tighten a bolt against it. It had about 5mm freeplay. So when you tighten the driveshaft flange into the box the flanges bolt picks up on this and once it pulls tight it starts to compress the spring thats on the flange.
Thats how it was on my KAAZ box. On the wavetrac box that I just sold you, when I removed the driveshaft flanges those had the spring and brass collar fitted to them as well. I cant say whether the wavetrac diff had the same sliding nut that the KAAZ had as I didnt rebuild that diff, and it may be different. But the HWY 02R that you now have definitely takes flanges equipped with the brass collar and spring.
When I said above that that I couldnt use the sprung/collared flange in the SQS LSD equipped box it was only because the collar/spring arrangement physically would not fit inside the receiver. There was no race for the brass collar to fit into. The SQS box seems to have the same sliding nut that the KAAZ box has because once you tighten the flange into the nut 'til its torqued up, you can then slide the flange in and out about 5mm. Obviously in the KAAZ box you cant do this because its out put shaft bearings 'receive' the collared/sprung flange aok. The SQS box wont because it seems to have different bearings that wont do that.
There are some really funny things with the POLO 02R boxes - 114mm or 113mm crown wheels, seemingly different output shaft bearings, and in talking to our gearbox guy the other day, some 02R's take the plastic driveshaft flange surround on both sides of the diff (like the box in the car now) and others will only have it on the engine side, from factory.
Still dont think my current box with the SQS in it is correct. If when the driveshaft flanges slid in they were a flush fit inside the bearing I'd be happy, but they weren't. The splines were nice but there was no additional support anywhere along the length of the flanges shaft.

[HaydEn]

I feel like the play is somewhat ‘normal’ with aftermarket diffs.

The VWMS/Gemini LSD I had in a 02J years ago would have the same play, and the bolt was torqued to spec.


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