Questions about HPI spider gears

[DeviledEggs]

Hi guys and girls. Quick back story: So a couple weeks ago I decided to finally pull my original, 2yr old RTR front diff in favor of a new Dlux housing, HD r&p gears and a dose of 500k. The HPI spider gears went in at the same time...
So I go out and bash a few packs thru and all is well in the front end. Cut to the failure- I notice the car pulling hard to one side when heavy on the throttle. An output (non-ring gear side) has popped out its seat in the front diff. Well 3WD sucks so I go home thinking that the chincy e-clip slipped off, easy fix. I was kinda right. Unfortunately, that little e-clip also grenaded the spider gears and the output was trashed to boot.

Now onto the questions/concerns. With the spiders, I used the supplied shims in between the side gears. Was this wrong? I mean, the crystal clear diff oil- after maybe 2.5hrs run time- is now black and full of glitter. Spider gear material I imagine. Are the shims forcing the spiders together too tight causing excessive friction? I dont wanna put this thing all back together only to have the same problem down the line.
So, to shim or not to shim? Also, what size e-clips am I after for the outputs, the 2mm or 2.5mm? And finally, is there a better e-clip out there than Axial's offering? They seem pretty loose and I don't think its the machining of the output.

Thanks for looking!

 

[apsilon]

I haven't really run mine yet but I didn't use the shims. Tried them during assembly and thought it'd be too tight.

I wasn't impressed with the supplied e clips. Far too loose and flimsy IMO but I haven't done anything about those yet.

 

[battery]

Before adding fluid I tried my diff by hand both with and without shims. It felt like a better mesh with shims so I used them. So far so good.

Maybe could you squeeze the e-clip (2.5mm) closed a tiny bit before installing it on the outdrive.

 

[DeviledEggs]

Thanks for the tip. I ordered everything new besides bearings and r&p. Hot racing diff cup, HD exo outputs and new spiders. We'll see how it goes.

 

[battery]

I'm interested to hear how it holds up. And those HR aluminum diff cups look pretty good too, haven't seen much info about them.

Even in a properly working diff, within a pack or two that crystal clear diff fluid is looking pretty murky. Guess it depends on how much diff action is taking place though.