Gear problem after locker install

Well, I'm freakin' pissed and tired right now, so hopefully someone can help me out.

I've been working on putting lockright's in a pair of axles with 4:56's that I was going to swap under my jeep tomorrow. I got everything done on the rear. It's all set and perfect.

After a little work and research I got everything apart and the locker installed in the front. After installing the carrier into the housing, and spinning the pinion, I find I have a major problem. The gears rotate smoothly about 270 degrees of the ring gear, but there is a couple spots very close to each other that bind up and require much more force to rotate the gear.

Right now, it's just the carrier installed no shafts or anything else. So it should be spinning 100% freely, right?

I didn't do anything different from what the instructions said. I removed the carrier, marked the ring gear, pulled the ring gear, and did the locker install. Then I reinstalled the ring gear lined up to the marks, torqued to spec, and installed the carrier. Now I have this binding.

So I repeated the process, and removed and reinstalled the ring gear, I have the same problems. I also switched the bearings around, just to see if it would make a difference, thinking maybe some how I mixed them up, but still nothing.

What would I have screwed up that would cause my binding? Please help me before I cry.

shims? ring gear seated completely?

Something under gear & carrier.All it takes is a little trash,loctite,pulled bolt hole,etc. to throw off the gear.
Wayne

Wayne Sihler said:

Something under gear & carrier.All it takes is a little trash,loctite,pulled bolt hole,etc. to throw off the gear.
Wayne

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Thats what i'm thinking as well. If you have air spray out the bolt holes in the ring gear as well, dirt and gunk and screwup torque readings..

there wasn't any shims when I pulled it. I guess I'll pull the thing apart again, and run a light sand paper over both surfaces and clean it real good again and hope that it works.

Well, I still have the problem after sanding and cleaning both surfaces and blowing out all the holes and cleaning the bolts.

I guess my only other idea is maybe there were shims between the ring and carrier, but they fell out and dissappeared into the atmosphere.

There are no shims used between the ring gear and the carrier. When you reinstalled the gear, did you by chance not get the gears meshed initially when putting the carrier back in. If you are tapping it in, and the gears don't mesh, they can get nicked. It doesn't take much as your only dealing with a small clearance, before there will be interference. Pull the carrier and very carefully inspect the top of the gear teeth. If you see any nicks in them, dress them down w/ a file.

explorer said:

There are no shims used between the ring gear and the carrier.

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That is what I wasn't sure about. I haven't done too much differential work, (and the stuff I've done was a couple years ago or more) and haven't seen any shims between them, but I wasn't sure or not.

I'll try to see if there is any burrs that need filing. That sounds very likely.

don't use sand paper. but instead use a flat file to both surfaces. make sure you are torquing the ring gear bolts to about 60 lbft in a criss-cross pattern. then go back around the circle and second click the torque wrench.
also make sure you are getting the carrier totally seated in the bearing journals. and double torque both carrier bearing caps on both sides. double torque means to hit all four bolts again to make sure everything is seated.

Well, this is plain rediculous. I did everything suggested and it still isn't making a difference AT ALL. It keeps happening in the same spots, as far as I can figure it's no more then 5 individual teeth. I think it is actually three, two next to each other, and one a few more teeth away.

It appears the pattern is okay. It's not like it is locking up. But it just gets stiff in these two areas that are near each other. It's like say (just for the sake of compairison, these numbers mean nothing) it takes 10 in/lbs to spin the pinion, except for in these two spots, it takes say maybe 20-30in/lbs.

There are no visable nicks, but I smoothed out the teeth anyways. Still no difference.

The ring and carrier surfaces were clean and smooth. I cleaned out all the bolt holes, torqued everything down to spec, checked at the very least 3 times for proper torque. Did the same for the journals.

It's just annoying. I know it is something simple, yet too complicated for me to figure out.

Haha.. sorry that i laugh. But I went through this today!!!!!!

I pulled the pinion back out and cleaned all the bearings and soaked them in WD40. Fixed it right up. Just alittle gunk in the bearings was my problem.

I am officially tired of setting up non-removable gearsets!

Matt

Are you sure that the gears were installed correctly the first time. If you just bought them maybe the guy was selling them because they were screwed up.

Well, he ran them for 1000 miles he said. The gear oil was visably used, and the gears aren't toasted. So I'd imagine he was telling the truth. He completely dismanteled the jeep and parted it out as he was in school and moving out of state. I saw the remaining body of the jeep, so unless it's a huge conspiricy to steal my 400 dollars, I think the kid was legit.

Scrappy, was your problem in rythm with the pinion? It seems to me, that I'd encounter the stiffness in a rythm of 9 since that is how many teeth are on the pinion, but I get it in two seemingly random locations.

Also, does anyone know where I can get a book on the dissassembly and reassembly of the axle. I'm guessing the FSM would have it? (just have to find that)

I WILL make this work, if it takes me a month, I will figure out this stupid problem!

I don't mind the laughs, it is getting more comical to me too as time passes. But it still is annoying the trUCK out of me.

try cleaning the bearings on the carrier. maybe you got some lint in there?

spin the ring 180* and bolt it back up, you may have a spot on each part thats on the edge of tolerance. see If it journals better in a different position.

Did you get your pin that hold the cross shaft all the way in? Maybe it is bearly out and the pinion is hitting it when it comes around to that point?
Brett

All good ideas... keep them coming. When I get home from work tonight I'm going to try them again.

"Red"; could it be a slightly bent axle half? Perhaps one is bent just enough that it didn't show up before with more clearance, but now with the new setup it shows?

The axles aren't in it yet. I still haven't toyed around with it. I've been busy, so it's just been sitting on my bench.

It's just the carrier in the housing, and the pinion. It doesn't happen in rythm with the pinion, so I'd assume that it is not the pinion, but the carrier.