Help Quick Please! Ring gear install question???
 

Well, I've come this far and haven't had a prob till now. I got the pinion gear in and the crush sleeve torqued perfect so I was happy with all that but now I have just installed the ring gear assy. and everything looked ok till I torqued down the caps. After that, I can't move a thing. So I loosen them up and it's still stuck. It's stuck (won't turn or anything) until I bang on the ring gear assy. in an effort to get it out. I don't see anything move but it will loosen up after a few good hits. By the way, when it does spin and the caps aren't tight the wear pattern is perfect. Could i possible not have the races on the bearings good enough? Could the cap be pinching the race causing the bearing to lock up. I just come in from outside because I was frustrated. I can't seem to even get the ring gear assy. out now. Oh and for the people that haven't read my other posts, I have ford racing 4.10's that I'm replacing the 2.73's with. I used all the original shims. Please help if you have any ideas.

Thanks, James

You don't have any backlash in your gears. You should have between .006 and .012 backlash and if there isn't any you can't turn the gears. You need to remove some shim from the carrier side and put it on the other side. Make sure you don't have the shims behind the bearings switched.

Zero BACKLASH and way too much pre-load?

I torqued the pinion nut all the way to the point it didn't wiggle around side to side. Then turned 1/8th turn. Was this not right? Do I need another crush sleeve to do it again? How do I know when the preload is right? Why do i have backlash when the caps aren't torqued and none when they are?

thanks, James

Torque the pinion nut until the pinion has 18-24 IN-LBS of running torque with new bearings or 10-15 IN-LBS of running torque with used bearings. As others have said, you need to obtain about 0.008" of backlash with the ring gear. Also don't forget that 0.006" gets added to each carrier shim group after you've obtained the backlash to properly preload the carrier bearings. You'll need a dial indicator to properly measure the backlash.

The pinion is fine you just need to move the ring gear away from the pinion gear a few thousands of an inch to give it some backlash. You measure it by putting an indicator on the ring gear and moving it back and forth without moving the pinion. That little bit of movement is your backlash.