Well,
the gears are in!
I don't have any pictures of
the install itself. I thought I was going to have an extra set of hands yesterday but ended up not. I also got a late start on
the project and didn't finish up until a little after dark.
Since none of my bearing pullers fit on
the pinion, I ended up measuring
the shim thickness and transferring that measurement over to
the new pinion. I was pretty nervous since without a bearing puller, this was a one chance deal.
Tried putting
the carrier back in with
the factory shims and could barely turn
the gears. There was zero backlash. A little trial and error and I ended up with
the carrier shifted about .02" to
the left. This gave me .012" of backlash. (
The gear sheet indicated .008-.012"). Painted up
the gears and my pattern was perfectly centered from heel to toe but coming right up to
the edge on
the face. Since I couldn't adjust
the pinion
out any more I decided to move
the carrier in a tiny bit more. Moved one shim over from passenger to driver and rechecked backlash. .008" Cleaned
the gears and ran another pattern... success! My pattern is biased
out very slightly to
the face, but ends before falling off
the edge.
I took them around
the block last night, then drove my son to school this morning and ran a couple errands. They're whisper quiet!
It feels like having 4.10's on stock sized tires again, which basically means it feels like a hot rod compared to before. Especially with
the 3.73's I'd gotten used to over
the past month.
I went to put
the Powertrax in yesterday as well, but discovered it actually has two of
the same side part, and won't fit into
the carrier. I'm going to email Richmond today and see what they can do.
Sorry again for no pics. I'll be sure to take some once I get
the Powertrax installed.
USA standard gears review well for longevity but apparently are a bit noisy. I figured between tire howl, exhaust drone and stereo blast I wouldn't notice.
