Hate to bring up what seems to be an old subject but i went by all the things i saw on here in reference to changing axles on 5speed... Long story short two weeks ago i bought axle for driver side non lsd, no ABS and non locking differential... needless to say it jumped out less than a day later ... took it back and Autozone said only other option is to try one with locking differential.Waited almost a week for it to be shipped in. Now based on everything i read on here and across the net , the maximas with locking diff are only the Canadian versions with LSD in the 4th Gen body. Just want to know if anyone else on here had to use a axle with locking differential even thought their car supposively does not have LSD... So can anyone clear this up for me

 

look on the builders tag on the firewall.

RS5F50A = Open Diff = non-lsd
RS5F50V = Locking Diff = lsd

 

My Builders tag reads
RS5F50A ... but the axles for a non locking diff jumped out on me... And the one for the Locking diff is working perfectly. So how do you explain that

 

The axle designed for a transmission w/locking differential will not seat properly in a non-locking transmission.

 

so what happened with the non locking axle?
i'm just trying to figure out whats the main difference. I bought the car for $500.. hell i dont even know if its the stock tranny or not

 

You either didn't have it seated in there all the way, or the snap ring on the end of the axle is not on there. Those are the two most likely scenarios. Far less likely would be some problem with the differential itself causing the snap ring not to seat in to the spider gear.

An LSD axle WILL NOT go in an open diff car. There is a half inch thick steel shaft in the diff that would prevent it from being installed.

It is exceedingly unlikely that you have a VLSD in a car that you bought for $500, but to make absolutely sure look at the trans. If the driver's side axle seal is about 3-3.5" in diameter (the black rubber seal) it is a VLSD trans. If it is about 1.5-2" in diameter it is an open diff. Another way to tell is look inside the axle hole, if you see a big half inch thick shiny steel pin/rod in there it is open diff, if you see no steel rod then it is VLSD.

My money is on either you messed up installing it or some part is messed up.

VLSD=LSD=Locking=Limited slip differential.
Open=non-LSD=non-locking diff