Dana 18 Transfer Case Failure

Ouch, that's a little crunchy.

 

I pulled the pan today. It's not good, but I see its better than I expected. With all the teeth missing I am amazed that it still moved on its own power.
This gear set was new from Crown. I see once the intermediate bearings go out. This is the result.



The output gear and the over drive gear are still good.



With the drain plug leaking and falling out. I would guess all the partials are in the pan.

 

We're those Tera low gears or stock?

 

I've been convinced that many Crown parts are simply rebranded/reboxed Omix parts. I don't know if Omix even offers the parts that failed on you though. In short, I firmly believe that Crown is not of the same trusted quality that it was years ago.

 

Stock 26 tooth gear set.

 

In your photos in post #22, it looks like the intermediate shaft is the smallest size at 3/4”. That jives with a 26 tooth “gear set” Do you mean 26 tooth output gear/bull gear? If so, these are the earliest version of the Brown & Lipe/D18 transfer cases, and are the weakest versions. This D18 dates back to WWll.
The next version of the D18 used the 1 -1/8” intermediate shaft that uses caged roller bearings for the intermediate gear in the mid-50’s.
The final version (introduced in the early 60’s?) used the 1-1/4” intermediate shaft, and there are two versions of the actual cases, “small hole” and “large hole”. These use loose roller bearings for the intermediate gear, and a 29 tooth output gear.
The later the case, the stronger the components.
-Donny

 

It's going to take some time to super glue those teeth back together.

Seriously though I would imagine the lack of oil from the leaking/missing drain plug caused the bearing failure that destroyed everything else. Makes me want to go tighten all the drain plugs on all three Jeeps.

This sucks. Glad you have another D18 for it.

 

just to add to this although it doesn’t help Scott, the MB and GPW transfer cases used a 27 tooth input gear and had an oddball 1.96-1 or something like that low range ratio.

 

The "26 tooth" gear set was used with the 1 1/8" intermediate shaft almost up to the point where the 1 1/4" intermediate shaft version arrived in early 1955. AFAIK, the 3/4" intermediate shaft and 26 tooth set was a very short run, 45/46? Scott should find a 29 tooth gear set/case for the rebuild. While going from 2.43:1 to 2.46:1 doesn't sound like much, the real difference is in the spur gear teeth profile. The later 29 tooth set has a lot more beef there.

 

I have the 26-tooth gears set with the 1 1/8" shaft. I had a 29-tooth transfer case I ran for a while. I don't like the 2.43:1. The 2.46:1 is better with my 33's and 4.27 dif gears.

 

I’m, confused here. You say you prefer the 2.46:1 gear set which is the 29 tooth input set but yet you are running the 26 tooth input set which is the 2.43:1 gear set. Why if you prefer the set you are not running?

 

If he's like me he's married to that gear set because of the overdrive. Once you invest in the 26 tooth overdrive it's very expensive to change gear sets.

 

29 TOOTH PLANETARY HSG ASSY - Advance Adapters
$385 bucks....or find a used one?

 

But in this case (excuse the pun), just about everything is going to need to be replaced. We don't even know if the OD is unscathed. The time to upgrade is clearly now. Actually, I would be putting a large index case together with 3.15 gears--------

 

X2 on the 3.15 gears!
There's no way the OD is in usable condition. It was run dry long enough for a bearing to fail, offset enough to chew up gears and distribute metal. The dry running alone would be hard on parts....

 

I'm mistaken for the ratio.

 

I can't do a large input case. I would have to replace everything.
New transmission adapter, new transfer case. and new low gears. I'm not doing that. As I see it. I don't
think I ran it long enough to burn up the overdrive. I'll just replace the intermediate gear and see what happens.

 

You do realize that is only one gear? (The overdrive gear.) You have to change the full gear set to get it to work.

 

Well, yeah.
That was in response to kenb's post about being stuck with that gear set because of the 26 tooth overdrive. I was attempting to point out that you don't need to buy a whole OD unit to change out the rest of the gears.

 

As much as one would like to be an optimist, I 100% concur with this. OD's are more sensitive to lack of lube than the rest of it and will start to fail before the lube level even gets to the bottom. I'm guessing it will be a bit cooked. Maybe more than a bit. For that much carnage in the case, it would be miraculous if it doesn't need a big dose of TLC.