ring and pinion experts?
 

Hello I am setting up a Motive gear ring and pinion in the dana 44 of my scout II. I have the spent the last 16 hours on this and am ready to buy a new set looking for opinions.... My problem is this:

-No matter how deep or shallow the pinion depth is or the backlash is set I get gear noise like a (Grrrr) sound every time the *same 3 or 4 gears on the pinion* are contacting the ring on the drive side.

-I have made every adjustment possible to eleminate this but it will not go away. Personally I have a feeling I have a bad set of gears......

-I bought them new and put 500 miles on them with the same very slight vibration at cruising speed. I feel this vibration is coming from this issue.....

-Anyone else have this noise at the same spot on pinion gears when setting them up? It only makes this noise in the one spot.

Thanks
Brandon

You might want to put the carrier in without the ring gear and run a dial indicator against the ring gear surface. Maybe it's warped a little.

Good idea I did that back when I first installed the set of gears 500 miles ago and the carrier was o.k. then so that shouldn't be the problem......

Anybody experience this when setting up gears?

THanks,

Brandon

I'm guessing you mean gear teeth, right? Does it occur when coasting, or only under power?

Why do you believe it's caused by only a few teeth?. Rhythmic vibrations can also be caused by worn or damaged roller/ball bearings. If nothing else helps, it might be worth replacing all the bearings -- carrier, pinion, axles.

When you check the tooth contact patterns, you might try checking all the teeth on both pinion and ring to see if anything looks unusual. Whatever the result, I would get in touch with Motive for their opinion.

I have set up a few, no expert by any means. If you only have a few teeth noisy, is the pattern different on those teeth? Common sense tells me if just a few teeth are meshing different then maybe 3 things, faulty ring gear, carrier not true or maybe you got a little foreign material under the ring gear when you installed it.
Also, where are the carrier shims? Every Dana I have done has them under the bearings, which are pressed on. It usually takes a set of sacrificial bearings if you are changing shims much to get the right pattern/backlash. What I have done is take just enough out of the inside of the bearing with a small flap wheel, so the bearing slides on and off without needing a puller. Then when everything is right, press the final bearings on.

I found the problem, using the gear marking compound I can see 3 or 4 teeth on the pinion with a distinct line running across the tooth,it is shiny so it is a high spot. It does this exactly where it makes the noise! Then I did a test on the ring and it left a distinct line on 2 of the teeth on the ring also. So i'd say these were messed up to begin with like I had assumed all along.......I am going to try and get them exchanged as they only have 500 miles on them and this problem existed from the beginning. I am not sure how it will go as the truck has been stored for one year which the warranty states 6 months.......I bought them from National Drivetrain not sure how there rep is?

Thanks,,,,

Are the gears quite? A bad set of gears usually does not produce just a vibration. You should have a noise.

If they are serious about quality control they would WANT them back to see where the problem lies....

Gears are not quiet. It's hard to say exactly as I have headers and an open exhaust but they seem to have a whiring type of sound at cruise that goes away on coasting.