Kraton Do i need to shim my diffs? V3 kraton

[jondilly1974]

I read all these posts and I still wondering how exactly to shim on my Kraton V3 to use 6S: does it have to be tight or leave some space ?

Please advise.

You want it as smooth as possible with no slop. Basically shim it as much as needed to the point where it still spins freely after assembly before you fill it with fluid. If it binds at all, you put too many shims in. If it still has slop in any direction, you need to add more.

 

[SrC]

I read all these posts and I still wondering how exactly to shim on my Kraton V3 to use 6S: does it have to be tight or leave some space ?

Please advise.

If you follow @Richduperbash with his video above, it doesn't get better than that. Follow his lead, the rest is trial and error and personal preference. Just jump in to get a better understanding. Shimming is important. Hopefully you do it sooner than later. Or sooner than later you will end up needing a diff tear down anyway. Diffs are critical on these rigs. They do a lot of work. Take a lot of load. Treat your diffs well in the beginning and they will treat you well with much more bashing time. Less down down time.
I am sure many don't shim. That is ok too. But eventually they know it should be done.

 

[SébastienSebior]

Thanks, I will shim along these lines and will also fluid with R15K/M100K/F30K
I will also replace all stock bearings with racing ones.

 

[Lazy Bushman]

The only extra shim I add is under the large sun gear at the bottom. I replace the shims behind the planetary gears with mugen but I don’t add any extra shims to them like some do. I have never busted a diff yet. What hurts you diffs the most is landing under power. If you can avoid that as much as possible then you should be fine

 

[SébastienSebior]

I watched all the vids, and spent the $40 on shims before mine even arrived. I added the one additional shim per pair of planetary gears and one under each sun gear and it felt to tight to me. After doing some more reading, it seems that the V3's don't need shimming as often out of the box so I removed the shims I added. I did shim the diff over toward the pinion in the housing and changed the diff oils to 50/500/20 and will check them out after a dozen or so packs are through it and see if it needs it then. The diffs were filled to different levels and I did find a piece of slag metal about 1mm cubed in one of them, so I'm glad I got in there.

Indeed I only shimmed the diff over toward the pinion in the cage. I was not able to shim inside as this was too tight. My Kraton is new and I found almost no oil in the front diff!! Fortunately I have checked them before running 6s?