Question With What To Do With Dodgy Workman Ship.

[Rolls]

Now I'm not going to name names as that would be classed as a VV. I'll just say the first company is a few drift kids who think they know what they are doing and the 2nd company is a race trans/diff place that has been in business for a long time. PM me if you want to know details, I'm located in SA.

Ok to start with I have a HR31 skyline with a Longnose R200 diff, to my knowledge it was a stock clutch pack LSD, it was not noisy or clunking at the time it was just open wheeling badly. Now I've heard of people successfully just 'shimming' these tighter to get some life out of then, now it happens that a fairly new workshop had opened up and were offering to do this on the cheap.

So I take it down there and they open it up and find out its actually a nismo 2 way that has worn out clutch packs and can't simply be shimmed, they offer for a cheap option to put in a shimmed up stock LSD centre out of an s13. They do this and charge me $250 and give me my 2way centre back.

About 10mins driving later the diff makes a horrible whining noise, the sort you get with incorrectly set backlash. I take it back as soon as possible with minimal driving in between. During this time it has popped the driveshafts out and lost over half the oil. On inspection the diff appears to be fine.

Around now is when I start questioning the skills these people have, and asked if they knew how to set the backlash, the guy seemed pretty clueless and ended up taking it to a diff shop down the road and getting them to fit it (at his cost). He reports back that my crown and pinion are now very worn, his explanation was that the crown was already worn down from age and putting the tightly shimmed centre in it has finished it off. The diff shop I'm assuming then properly set the backlash and made up a proper shim for it.

The guy recommends that I take it to this other company and get the 2way properly rebuilt as they know their shit and have been in the business for 40+ years.

Now at this point I leave with a noisy diff that acts like a cheap locker, about 2 days later its almost as loose as it was before and I have essentially spend $250 to ruin my diff.

I go to the new place that he recommends, they rebuild the nismo 2 way centre at a very reasonably price ($150), however when they go to fit it it is still very noisy, they say that as the crown and pinion are so worn I either have to replace them, or buy a complete 2nd hand diff assembly and use a set from there, or drive with a noisy diff but a strong centre (2way) that should last. They quote a complete diff assembly ~$700 including fitting etc, after speaking to this place they seem to think that they have just stuffed up fitting the shims and set the backlash incorrectly ruining it.

Now the question I ask, how liable is the first company, I think it is reasonable to ask for my $250 back and return the other centre, however you could also argue they are liable for replacing the gears as they did not set the backlash correctly and ruined them. What do you people think I should do, take it as lesson learnt and just get my $250 back, or pursue partial costs of the replacement gears as well?

2nd question, please PM me if you have a longnose R200 diff with a good gear set, eg not noisy or clunky, dont care if the centre is stuffed, open wheeler etc.