Re: Breakin Gears?

From: Mike Schwall (mschwall@flash.net)
Date: Sat Feb 05 2000 - 23:44:05 EST


At 10:29 PM 2/5/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>A local mechanic told to be weary of flooring it from a dead stop. He said
>you will break gears in the diff. ?I have a 94 V8 with a 3.90 rear end. Is
>this a normal amoung these trucks or just if you do it often. Also, about
>how many miles does the trannys(auto) go for before they die?
>Thanks
>Randall

That's an "iffy" subject. Theoretically, the higher you go (numerically)
in gears, the weaker the gear teeth are. High ratios (numerically) have
more teeth on the ring gear, which makes the meat of each tooth
thin. Lower ratios (numerically) have less teeth on the ring gears, and
the teeth have plenty of meat, which means it's stronger. With all the
ratios out there, some manufactures compensate by changing the pinion and
ring gear teeth count, trying to make a good match to keep the strength.

I've personally never seen gear failure where teeth were broke off, but I
have seen failures caused by gear oil breakdown caused my improper pinion
depth and backlash settings. The higher ratios run hotter, because the
pinion gear is running faster and from the torque multiplication.

You'd loose pinion support before you break a gear tooth, but you never know.

Mike

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