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Dana 30 Ring Pinion Setup Opinion on Patterns

22K views 20 replies 5 participants last post by  agear 
#1 ·
I'm re-gearing my Dana 30. I've read everything I can on the forum, and got lots of ideas from lots of members. Too many to thank all of them.

I did 5 setups and patterns today, the first one was almost too good, so I made pinion shim changes to check out what it did, plus gave me a chance to see what it did. I did marking pattern on two spots on the gear, about 180 from each other, and would spin the carrier a bunch of times, both ways to get a pattern.

I didn't change carrier shims, since the carrier to case gap/back lash was about 6-8 thou on all setups.

All dimensions are thousandths.
Summary:


Setup 1 Pattern
Drive side


Coast Side:


Setup 2 was too far to the Face, or pinion was too far from Ring gear

Setup 3 was too far to the flank, or pinion was too Close to Ring Gear

Setup 4 Pattern
Drive Side


Coast Side


Setup 5 Pattern
Drive side


Coast side


I read the Yukon Instructions, which said to focus on the pattern between face and flank, not to worry about centered on the ring gear, inner diameter to outer diameter.


Question; Drive side vs. coast side, for new gears I've been focused on getting the pattern centered on the drive side, should I?

What do you guys think of the patterns? Which one is preferred? or Am I close?


Thank you all for you time and input!!

Mike
 
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#3 ·
You want to worry about the driven side ,which is the coast side. When you run a pattern hold the pinion to provide resistance and turn the differential by the ring gear and roll it back and forth 3 or 4 times.
 
#5 ·
A follow up ?
 
#6 ·
Okay, thought I would get some time this week, turned out to be just Thursday night.

I started with a new shim thickness, and set my rotating resistance on the pinion nut to be 10-20 in-lbs.
I used a Park Tool Bike torque Wrench.....we have more than one bike in the garage, made sense to get one.



This is what I started at; depth Shim of 0.024", but it looked like it was too much toward the Face.
Coast side:




So, I increased depth shim thickness and then worked back lashes.

0.028" pinion shim looked the best on the coast side. I then adjusted diff carrier to bearing shim to get the ring backlash, and then more shims to get diff carrier to case backlash to 0.

Final marking patterns:

Coast side




Drive Side




Final Summary:



So, do these look good/bad/okay??


Last item is to set pinion pre-load shims, plan is tomorrow, and then seals, final assembly

Thanks
Mike

 
#8 ·
I think mostly the depth looks fine, Your first drive side picture pattern kinda looks deep (concentrated low on tooth). Is it the angle?cuz the next pic doesnt look like that.
 
#9 ·
CSP, thanks I'll do another setup at 0.030 and see what it looks like

Agear, yes i think the angle of the picture doesn't show it well.
The coast side pattern is wide on the tooth, the drive side patter isn't as wide, and one half of it lower (flank) on the tooth and the other half is on the face side.

The setup at 0.024" showed that both the coast and drive side wasn't deep enough. I went to 0.028" since i already had a pattern at 0.032 that I thought was too deep.

Thank you for the input, more to come today.

Mike
 
#13 ·
CSP, thanks
What I'm seeing is that if the pinion is too close to the ring gear, I get a a half circle pattern with the flat side close to the flank. If the pinion is too far, then I get that half circle pattern with the flat side near the face.

I haven't been worried about getting the pattern centered from ID to OD of the ring gear.

80CJ; yes I was trying to get the same amount of pre-load, that is why I'm using the park tool torque wrench to measure it while it spins.

I did take 0.002 out of the shim thickness, going with 0.028 setup.

Here is what I see on the patterns. This is the coast and drive side, with area marked that I'm seeing. One, I've only circled the 'hard' part of the pattern.

0.030 pinion shim thickness

I think this is too much shim thickness, so pinion shimming needs to be less, moving the pinion away from the ring gear.

0.028 pinon shim thickness


Thoughts?

Thanks,
 
#16 ·
The drive side looks nice and centered and the coast side has moved further toward the toe but the impression on the coast side looks incomplete. Don't know how you're taking your patterns but I like to roll the ring gearback and forth against the preloaded pinion about 3 or 4 times. It gives me nice clear patterns.
 
#18 ·
80cj

I'm rotating the ring gear to get my patterns. With the per-load on the pinion, it's a bit hard to turn, but not difficult.

The last pattern, the ring gear back lash was 0.0065.

This axle is for the front, so I had some info to concentrate on the coast side.
I also read in the Yukon instructions on line, to not focus on getting the pattern centered heel to toe.

I'll try these changes, and try to get better pictures. I'm also going to thin the marking compound with some mineral spirits.

Won't be til Thursday night before I get some time.

Thank you for the input.....stay tuned!

Mike
 
#20 ·
Hey guys, I'm back. Been way too busy with other activities....spent some time here and there on getting the axle set up done.

Centerfire, thanks for the link. That helped me understand it a bit better on how the backlash can change the pattern.

So, I did more patterns with slightly changing the pinion depth and the back lash.

These are the best I could get.

Coast

This was the best one with a definitive line of marking yellow on the top an bottom of the tooth.

Drive


As of this point, the axle is together, carrier installed, pinion installed, cover in place.

Thanks again you guys for all the help!

Mike
 
#21 ·
You're welcome. Experts say not to worry about heel to toe. Your pinion depth don't look bad !
 
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