I don't know about the transaxle cars but I took a Spider differential apart recently and discovered that the spider gear shafts are trapped between two 'V' blocks. When the axles are loaded at different rates, the 'V' blocks are forced apart and that is what puts pressure on the limited slip clutches. So, with no load on the axles, those clutches just sit there and free wheel. That's why when you have the wheels off the ground and turn one wheel or the other everything acts like a non-LSD differential. I have jacked one wheel up and put the car in gear and spun one rear wheel but I never had guts enough to nail it and see if it would jump off the jack ;-)
I also discovered a quick way to determine the gear ratio on a Spider or GTV. Put the transmission in gear and jack one rear wheel off the ground. One revolution of the rear wheel will turn the driveshaft exactly half the gear ratio. 4:10=2.05, 4.56=2.23 and so on. So mark the drive shaft and spin the rear wheel one turn. If the mark is back where it started you have a 4:10. If it is a quarter turn beyond you have a 4:56 Skip Patnode '67 Duetto with a late model 4:11 LSD Norfolk, Va -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
