D44 backlash

Be sure to check the backlash and run a picture on the ring gear before further dissemble. You must be very careful when reassembling used gears. The gears will wear groove into themselves. When reassembling, You must insure the picture is correct. Many times when trying to eliminate minor excessive backlash, the pinion gear will ride inside the wear pattern.This will cause a loss of contact area, since the pinion will be riding on a small area of the ring gear, the rest of the ring gear will be worn away and not be in contact. If the carrier and pinion are tight, and the picture is good, I would have a hard time justifying messing with the backlash over a couple of thousands. If everything is good and you have a lot of backlash, you can try to eliminate a bit of it, however I think you will find the picture will disappear, and in the end, new gears will be the needed. Now after all that is said and done, my first suspicion would be the carrier gears and thrust washers.

 

Hey Howard, do you have one of these? If so, you can check the backlash by putting the tip of it on the very end of one of the teeth and actually see how much travel there is. I did not end up rebuilding mine except to replace the axle and pinion seals, but I didn't have to reset anything to do that.

 

All good advice, above. You really can't make any accurate assumptions about backlash from the amount of freeplay in the yoke. The only way is to measure with a dial indicator as shown in the above post. I've setup three front axle sets and it's not that easy. I wouldn't do a rear since it's in use all the time, it's more critical. I'd say, have a competent driveline shop do any setup on the rear. It'll save you a lot of frustration and uncertainty. If you are going to have someone else set it up, don't disassemble the ring and pinion. They'll need to make measurements from it to properly do the setup. Just my .02 Good Luck .

 

By the way, if all you really need to do is replace the pinion seal, you can do it without pulling anything apart except the yoke.

 

Howard, it seems that you have the right idea. Now I am NOT an expert, as I have not done this particular rebuild, but given your numbers, it sure seems to me that you likely need new pinion bearings. I'll let others chime in to verify.....

 

I'd like to see another picture. Use Prussian blue or zink oxide(I use a mixture of both for better contrast). Properly set the pinion bearing preload. Use a pry bar between the carrier and the housing to provide preload. Paint a number of teeth and run them through the pinion at least twice. The reason I say this is because the wipe on the tooth at the bottom of the picture looks pretty good. The paint seems to be on the full face of the tooth, though a little low. However, it's hard to tell. The rule of thumb when working with used gears is "go for the picture, not the backlash".
On a side note, w3rsl, your picture is on the coast side of the gears. I hope you ran a picture on the drive side, as they can be different, and the drive side is the one you want to concentrate on.
Scott

 

Steve's pic is pretty derned close!

Try this from Richmond Gear. I was suppose to get the video from the rep last fall and never got around to it. See diagrams http://www.richmondgear.com/01instructions.html

 

If the rearend has lots of mileage on it and is quiet running, I wouldn't mess with the ring and pinon even though the backlash may seem to be a little excessive. If you try to tighten the backlash, it will probably start to whine. Ten degrees free rotation in the pinion isn't bad for a high mileage rearend. I would look for looseness in the spider gears.

 

I was under mine yesterday and noticed the same thing.
It appears my "backlash" is in the spiders.
I pulled the oil fill plug and watched the action.
The pinion-to-ring movement is GOOD.
The slop is occuring in the spiders in mine.

My 44 has the most backlash of any rear I've ever had but it's quiet and smooth otherwise. It'll have to do for now.