Re-Rearing A T/A

13. We also checked ring gear runout, which proved to be less than .001.

14. Finally its time to check the pattern on the drive and coast sides. Using gear marking compound, we paint about 5 teeth in three places on the ring gear. Then the carrier is turned to mesh with the pinion gear to create a pattern on the ring gear. We moved the painted portion back and forth past the pinion 3 or 4 times. Though tough to see in the photos, the pattern shows that the ring gear is in fact too close to the pinion gear, as had been indicated by the depth setting tool in caption 1.

15. If you don't use a pinion depth setting tool and instead use Randy's method of installing the carrier to check for proper pinion depth, and the result is a pattern that indicates a pinion-which is either too close or too far from the ring gear-then follow Randy's advice. He recommends changing the shim thickness on the pinion in large increments .005 to .015 until the pattern is close. Then make small changes .002-.004 to dial in the correct pinion depth. In our case we had the depth tool reading to go by and a reduction in shim size of.005 yielded a correct pinion depth.

16,17,18. Randy says that you will seldom get the perfect heel/toe pattern so he looks only for a pattern that is centered from face to flank to determine proper pinion depth. RR&P provides this group of illustrations in the instructions, which depict acceptable and unacceptable patterns that you will come across while doing this job. These diagrams better illustrate the patterns than photos of our painted ring gear did, so we reprinted them.

19. Once we adjusted the pinion depth and checked the pattern against the chart, we must remove the pinion, install the crush collar and then reinstall the pinion and set the preload.

20. With the pinion in place and the outer bearing installed, the pinion seal is tapped in with a hammer, in lieu of a seal installer.

21. Once the seal is in, the yoke is positioned over the pinion splines and tapped into place. Next, the washer is installed, followed by the pinion nut with Loctite applied to the threads. Before, we installed the new nut with Loctite as seen here.