[Gluckmysock]

I see a case spreader. How much load is on the carrier bearings? I could pry mine out and tap them in with a big hammer? Also, are your bearing caps in the factory location? The patterns look pretty good.

 

[quicksilver]

I see a case spreader. How much load is on the carrier bearings? I could pry mine out and tap them in with a big hammer? Also, are your bearing caps in the factory location? The patterns look pretty good.

I have between 30 to 35 in/lbs on the carrier bearings. When rotating the pinion with everything installed right now in at 35 to 36 in/lbs, the pinion itself was at about 28.

Maybe I'll leave the pinion where it is. But I need to solve my runout issue, not sure whats going on there. I'm going to pull the ring gear off one more time and clean it really well. I did right before installing it for this pattern. The carrier is good, .001" or less runout on that, about a 1/4 of the ring gear is tighter than the rest of it by .004". I dont get it. Torqued it down in star pattern in steps, trying to bring the ring gear up evenly so as not to warp it. I first filed the back side of the carrier and ring gear with flat file to remove any potential burrs. Second time it took a sharpening stone to them and ran it around a couple times along with rotating the ring gear since there were two sides that were fluctuating, one +.002" and one -.002". Thought I could flip it 180° to offset the difference, now 3/4 of the ring gear is within .002" runout, then the last quarter shoots right up to .004"

 

[Gluckmysock]

Man dude. That's strange. Where are you checking runout, the back side of the rg?
Pinion preload seems a little high too.

 

[quicksilver]

Man dude. That's strange. Where are you checking runout, the back side of the rg?
Pinion preload seems a little high too.

Checking runout on back side of ring gear, I also removed the ring gear, install carrier back in axle and torqued everything down and check the face, minimal runout. Must be I didnt stone it well enough, and after checking out some videos, im going to get more aggressive with it.

I thought I had read somewhere that new bearing preload for d30 is supposed to be 20-40 in/lbs, could be I got bad info, you got factory specs for that?

 

[Gluckmysock]

Dana 30 preload should be 12-15 in lb. On new bearings I confirmed that with West Coast differentials.

 

[quicksilver]

Thankfully I have shims, not too late to correct that, and an easy one at that

 

[quicksilver]

Ugh, been at work all week and weekend now..... havent been able to mess with the front at all, but hey, I know what I need to do when I get to it finally. The good news is this weekend just payed for tires and rims for the xj! I'll wait til I get all my work done for that though. I also sold a few things that will also give extra monies for all the projects.

 

[quicksilver]

I have terrible patience for things, lol

I like the price I paid for these. And yes, I plan on going with a full size spare as well.






and I was pricing out tires too, found 35" cooper stt pros for a decent price, had em in the cart and wanted to see what tax would be, accidently bought the set of 5 for $1,111 and change...... lol, guess I got a whole new set of wheels on the way now!

 

[quicksilver]

So I'm pretty confident I figured out why my lateral runout on the ring gear is what it is. I ran an axial runout test just for s***s n giggles and got
.008", my lateral is at .004". Measuring the lateral on the back side of the ring gear is done at a 45° angle since its how its machined.

I did all this after taking it off one more time to clean the mating surfaces. Like stated before, the surface of the carrier had minimal runout, <.001". When measuring axial, i had the .008" difference occur in one quarter only, every other side was between 0 and .001".

Im going to rotate the ring gear back 180° since that was how it was to begin with and backlash was more consistent that way. I will also check the axial runout of the carrier when I remove the ring gear. One or the other is off and causing this runout issue. If it is only the ring gear, I think I'll just rotate and send it. If its the carrier, I believe I will send it back.

 

[wjlizard]

Nice rims , I have the same ones . They are tough as hell and kept pretty nice through the years. I think I bought mine in 2012. Just starting to get a little rust on them now. Only down fall is they are freaking heavy. Come to think of it ,I bought those for my JK in 2008 not 12 sorry

 

[quicksilver]

The new contact pattern, lessened pinion depth another .005", it will get .001" deeper when I put the actual components in since the oil baffle is slightly thicker than the current combination to make up for it. Just need to adjust back lash a little tighter now. I'm going to run this setup, backlash variation is only .003" difference around. Dont know why its so different now, but u had .005" difference before.

 

[quicksilver]

Carrier checks out fine in all boxes. Ring gear "radial" runout is .008" after rotation, so its def the ring gear. I have back lash set at .009" at the part of the ring gear that sits normal. The section that has .008" runout, sticks out further, and back lash is .0045" there. Variation in back lash is .0045".



Do I send the gears back? Those of you who did their own gears, would you run em? The pattern looks damn good

This is side with back lash at .0045" ^

And backlash at .009" ^

Not a whole lota difference in pattern between sides.

Need some help on this call, I understand I could have potential gear noises from this, I wonder how bad it may be though. I will be calling RMS tomorrow to also get his opinion on the matter.

 

[Gluckmysock]

The patterns do look good. I don't know how much affect .0045 will have on wear and performance. It seems a little unusual. but I agree, I would contact the manufacture and talk to a tech. I know the gears are not truly hardened until broken it, so it may have been a break down in original manufacturing process.

 

[quicksilver]

I've got a set of yukon gears coming in replacing the usa standard. Ron said that the .008" runout is too much and will be undesirable. Its uncommon for their gearsets to have that much, but I guess it happens. I'm hoping that the new gears don't need too much adjustment to get right....

 

[quicksilver]

Alright, got my new gearset for the front today, went and swapped everything over and set em up. Runout is now under .002" and my initial set had backlash at .004" across the board, checked at 4 quarters. Ran a quick pattern and definitely need to adjust.

Pinion appears to need to go deeper, and in the process, ill get that backlash in check.

I'm happy now that my runout issue is gone, bug shoutout to Ron for upgrading me to yukon gears!

 

[Gluckmysock]

Things like that don't happen often, but I'm glad you got new gears.

 

[quicksilver]

Much relief!

Took a few setups in order to get this right, but I finally got it! The drive pattern was difficult to read compared to the coast, it definitely didn't show up as clear, but this is good enough for me to read and call it good.

And here is some of the bling, BTW, I hate u joints!!!!

 

[Gluckmysock]

Veddy nice! Looks good buddy!

 

[quicksilver]

From now on, I will be installing u joints with a pitman arm puller. It puts the force on the ear that the cap gets installed into, rather than across to the other ear, leaving potential for s*** to bend. Dont ask why, just know.....

 

[quicksilver]

Front axle done, oil leak from rear main seal area addressed, it wasn't the rear main, but the oil pan gasket that was leaking, I never put rtv in the valley on top, nor underneath of the gasket, id say i hope it fixes it, but it doesn't matter at this point. I decided to look up at the internals because I had an inkling, and my worst fear was confirmed.....

There are more photos, but the engine wiped put bearings 2 and 3. Its not good. Never had a knock at all, but when I started the jeep to move it so I can do the rear axle, she gave me the slightest sound then went away. So I'm hoping the camshaft journals are alright there and only need a fine polish.

From what I'm reading is that a lot of camshafts need some polishing and tmeven the bearings need a good chamfer job done to some of them. Going to find a shop to replace the bearings close to me, and also talk to them about finding a better set made of different materials.....

Onto the rear axle this week though, this should be an easier one to complete since its a 29 spline, ie no carrier shims to worry about.