axle gears contact pattern - take a look and voice an opinion pls

[LCAM-01XA]

This is a front D60 with 3.54 gears. Gears were used but appear to be in good condition. Like a moron I pulled the factory 4.10s out before painting them so I have no idea what their contact pattern looked like... This is what I have now, pics actually show three different groups of painted teeth.

Drive side:

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Coast side:

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Are these acceptable contact patterns? 4x4 will be used quite rarely and I doubt it will ever see speeds of even as much as 35mph. Factory 235/85-16 tires, no rock crawling or Jeep climbing intended.

Also while we're at it, look at these axle seals - are they in far enough? They kinda look like they're not all the way in, but then again I may just be paranoid (ignore the grime, it has since been cleaned off):

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[PwrSmoke]

Can't tell very well on the drive side. It's MUCH more difficult to read used gears. Sometimes it's virtually impossible because they get so polished and all you can do is set up via a pinion depth gauge. I can read the coast side a bit better and it looks like the pattern is a little "faced," meaning the pinion is too far away and it needs to move in (add shims to the shim pack). I see a "half moon"shape from the face. Ideally you want a losenge or football shape centered between the face and flank (base of tooth and outer part of tooth). The placement between the heel and toe (outer and inner parts of tooth view radially, i.e. the heel is at the "tread" end if you pretend the RG is a tire) isn't so important and is controlled by backlash. If you backlash is in the correct range and it isn't centered, you usually don't have enough backlash adjustment to center it anyway and still stay within the range.

Looks like you are using prussian blue, which is the hardest to read IMO. I prefer the yellow paste because you can read it easier. Also, put a lot of pressure on the carrier to make is as hard to spin the gears as possible. THis gives you the best patterns. I'm happy when I can generate enough resistance on the RG that I need a breaker bar on the pinion nut to spin the gears thru.

The seals are driven in as far as they will go and they look OK to me... way too much grunge, though. I see a lot of rust in the axle tubes, which is best cleaned out while you have the chance. I would also say you need to do a better job of cleaning out the housing inside. There is no filtration in a diff so all the nastiness stays in there to wear parts.

 

[89greendiesel]

i dont think you are getting a better reply than that

 

[typ4]

pwrsmoke hit all the exact points I would, Used gears are a pain to read, I think 2 to 4 more thou pinion shim would make it perfect, BUT if right now your backlash is on then I would be tempted to run it.

My front has a perfect pattern and when I did it I didnt have enough shims to get the backlash correct, it has about .003. Ive used it for years, no heat and quiet so it stays. now if I was pulling or plowing i would make dang sure all was exact.

its your call but it will run like it is.
oh, look at the plus and minus marks on the pinion heads if there are any and post back, that will tell you some more about factory pinion depth.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Aye, I also thought the coast side looks like the pinion is a bit too far out, but I intentionally didn't mention it cause I didn't want to bias your opinions. Drive side is different tho, it has the football shape but kinda twisted a bit - one corner is towards toe crown, the other is towards heel root. Does not appear to be hanging off the crown edge like the coast side is. Bakclash is .008 right now so right in the middle of the specs.

Factory 4.10 pinion is marked +5, "new" 3.54 pinion is +1. So it appears typ4 is right on the mark recommending a 4 thau increase. But darn it, would it have killed Dana engineers to put the shims between the pinion bearing and the pinion head like Ford did with the 8.8 setups? So if I move the pinion 2-4 thau towards the ring (assuming I even find my darn shim packs, they are MIA again, which means I may have to order yet another set of those), how much should I expect backlash to decrease, any rough guestimates?

Yes that is indeed prussian blue. I absolutely hate the yellow stuff when working with used gears, I can never get any decent readings out of it. Even silver antiseize is easier to read for me than the yellow paste. Prussian blue seems to work best with my eyes I guess.

The seals were not my doing, that's why I asked about them. They are nice and tight on the axle shafts and they don't leak, so I'm tempted to just let them be for now.

And yeah I know the housing ain't clean in the pics, I've found out when I spray everything w/ cleaner the camera flash reflects weird and pics end up pretty much useless. It is nice and clean now tho, I'd never let it run grimy w/ all that junk floating in there.

Edit: forgot to mention, I insert a prybar in the housing and use it as friction brake against the carrier ring gear flange by pushing ******* it, then I use a long ratchet to turn pinion.

 

[kpj]

According to Yukon's gear installation instructions, when using used gears you should focus more to coast side than the drive side, because coast gives you more precise pattern. That's the way i did it, but haven't had a chance to test it out. Hopefully in a moth or so i have real world results. I got the pattern the way i like it on the coast side, but the drive side wasn't ideal...

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Alright, looking at coast side pinion was too far away from ring. This also jives with the markings on the two pinions. So I pulled it apart, found out my spare shims are indeed nowhere to be found, cut new shims as needed, put it all back together with the pinion now .004 closer to the ring, and both drive and coast centered themselves between tooth root and crown. Coast is also centered between toe and heel, drive however is heavy on the toe end - suggests it needs more backlash. And seeing how I currently have like next to no backlash with this setup, yeah, carrier needs to slide over a bit. Which brings me to this question - how does one remove the carrier bearings without destroying them? There are no reliefs cut in my carrier for puller jaws. The bearing splitter tool barely grabs hold of the edges of the bearing races, that's not enough to hold up against the 20-ton press (assuming it would fit in the press to begin with, which it does not. The only thing I can come up with is use the splitter again, but heat up the bearings a bit (200-300F) to make them let go of the carrier easier... Any other ideas?

Edit: I should probably add that while I do know of the $300 Yukon puller tool, that's quite a bit out of my budget for now, as I don't do axles for a living and thus it's a bit hard for me to justify shelling that kind of money on something that in all likelyhood will be a 1-time use. If no reasonably safe way to pull bearings exists I'm very tempted to dial the depth back 2 thau and run the pinion slightly on the far out side and the backlash right on the low end of the factory specs...

 

[6.9poweredscout]

4x4 will be used quite rarely and I doubt it will ever see speeds of even as much as 35mph. Factory 235/85-16 tires, no rock crawling or SCOUT climbing intended.

fixed it for you....

 

[LCAM-01XA]

And a somewhat offtopic question, but it also goes with what PwrSmoke said about the dirty axle tubes - will this seal help against that?

http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-11768-d60-outer-tube-seal.html

I've never seen a Ford that had it, how does it work - does it press onto the inner axle shafts, or into the axle tubes? Looks like it goes on the axle shafts and then the soft lip seals against the axle tube, much like how the seals on the outer shaft seal against the spindles. Anyone here run them?

 

[LCAM-01XA]

fixed it for you....

What I meant was that I will not be climbing on top of Jeeps. The way you fixed it... yeah, I think you may wanna leave it how I had it

 

[6.9poweredscout]

they're easy to crawl on!

 

[icanfixall]

I just was reading about gear patterns on the Randys Ring and Pinion page. They have a very good read on setting gears properly and how much each thousands will move things. I also feel you need to use the proper paint because prussion blue is ok but not in this area. I used lots of that stuff on the valves in the machine shop I retired from. Its an amazing product but it has its limits. It worked great for the asshats gloves. Put on a pair of surgical rubber gloves. Paint the finger tips blue. Stick painted hand and glove in asshats work gloves and run like hell. but hide and watch him remove them to take a break... Priceless. Then to really get them good put some in the pad locks to the tool box. Make sure its cleaned off well. The the fool has no idea why that crap keeps truning up everywhere. If you really hated these fools you squirt super glue in the pad lock. The key fits but nothing will turn... Another priceless thing too.

 

[sle2115]

I used Prussian blue as well, HATE the taxicab snot! I think you are on the right track, we used a press and bearing knife that just BARELY grabbed the inner race to get started, then went to one that fit better and it is a pain in the butt because of shim location! I worked with a guy that set ring gears up weekly, and I promise you, you won't find yellow goo anywhere in his shop, it was ALL Prussian blue and he helped me set my gears up as well. Anyway, good luck and enjoy the shim change! lol

 

[LCAM-01XA]

OK, what is more important - pinion depth or backlash? Right now my depth is right on looking at the coast side, but looking at my drive side I need more backlash. Well it looks like my carrier shims are staying as they are now - on the ring gear side of the carrier the bearing knife barely grabs on the race but there's no way to put any force on it, while on the other side there are all sorts of ways to get hold of the knife but knife itself simply cannot get even a semi-decent grip on the bearing. So I can run perfect depth with very little backlash, good backlash with shallow pinion, or somewhere in between. Which is the lesser evil?

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Here's what I got now, first drive side - you can see how the contact pattern is concentrated more towards the toe (inner) end of the teeth:

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And here's the coast side - not as easy to read as drive side now, but still semi-decent, shows pattern right in the middle between root a crown and ever so slightly on the heel side:

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As for prussian blue vs. the yellow stuff, I simply cannot read the yellow well enough to be able to make use of it. If I had any I'd paint the gears with it too for your guys' sake, but I don't have any yellow, just the blue.