Questions about differential bearings and preload

[AmTeC]

Hey everyone, so I decided to rebuild my H2A5 since all the bearings were either totally shot or getting loud. I've since gotten every bearing off the various shafts with ease, but the diff bearings are proving to be quite a pain in the cunnilingus.

I've tried hammering screwdrivers in, and ended up ruining them. I tried sharpening a steel flat bar and jamming that in there, no luck. I've got a bearing splitter on order but I have low hopes for that too.

Here are some methods I was thinking of trying, but I want an opinion on whether this is a waste of time or not. Pulling the bearing off with a splitter by jamming the splitter under the bearing cage, I assume it will break and the rollers will just go flying everywhere, but is it worth a shot?

Or my other idea was cutting the cage off, and carefully grinding a deep groove into the exposed inner bearing race, and hooking the bearing splitter into that groove, and pulling it off that way, is this advisable?

Also does the speedo gear have to come off to remove the larger bearing? How could that be removed without breaking it?

And finally, what's this I'm hearing about bearing preload? I have a pdf of a Honda service manual and as far as I've been able to find, there's not mention of this anywhere, is it really necessary if the same diff is going back into the same case it came out of? I would assume that newer less worn out bearings would bring the preload close to spec anyways? What is the reason the preload could go out of spec?

[AmTeC]

I got the bearings out, the splitter did in fact do the trick, although I'm still wondering about the diff preload, does anyone even bother with this or do y'all just send it?

[Raf99]

Well preload would be the amount of give it has, just like a rear end on a truck. But didn't think you could set the preload on these, But..... for the MS (master shaft) there are washers that go under it, but one is bent a weird way but acts as a preload. Is there one for the diff bearings too? I would simply put it back the way it came out with the same (new) parts.

[AmTeC]

From what I've been reading, it seems the preload can be adjusted using various thickness shims that should be available from Honda, thicker shims, more preload. And then you gotta check the preload by reassembling the transmission case with only the diff inside, no shafts or gears. Then after torquing all the casing bolts, you get some kind of adapter and stick it in the output shaft, then you stick a torque wrench in the adapter and compare the amount of force you need to turn the diff with the listed spec, if it's too low, add shims, too high, remove or replace with thinner shims.

Since I've made this post, I've done lots of searching and it seems that most folks usually only seem to do this if they're replacing the diff with an aftermarket LSD or something that might be ever so slightly different in size than the stock diff. That makes sense. I do believe the Honda service manual I was reading (incomplete manual unfortunately) states you should do the preload check and adjustment whenever you have the transmission open already, which is why I initially asked about this. But it seems that there's probably no need to do it, as my transmission wasn't terribly worn, and was clearly not abused. And I believe when you replied to another post I made, you mentioned you rebuilt your transmission yourself, and I assume by the sound of it, you did not do the bearing preload check, and your transmission is fine, and based on the lack of posts regarding this in the CB7Tuner forums and even the Hondatech forums, it seems like a service that's rarely done for a basic rebuild on a stock tranny.

Of course I'm wrong about this, someone please feel free to correct me, as I'm always willing to learn. This is my first transmission rebuild and I'd like it to go welll!

[Raf99]

& you're not talking about the mainshaft spring washer? As the only shimming washer I knew of was for the mainshaft.

From Prelude manual.