The Easiest Way to Read Ring & Pinion Contact Patterns

[Music] [Applause] hey it's actually i was off in space i was thinking of those giant gear pattern guides oh yeah with like 16 pictures of if the pinion's too tight and the backlash is too loose and if your mom cooks chicken instead of turkey for dinner and like there's like all these windows of different things that they put in for these pattern guides yeah and a lot of those are finite that if you set the backlash properly before you even check the pattern all that you're worrying about is just the opinion done and if all you're worrying about is the pinion depth you don't need 16 pictures you don't have to worry about the drive side and the coast side if you get the drive side perfect the coast side should be perfect or damn near and if the coast side isn't perfect you're not going to sacrifice a perfect drive side pattern to get your coast side looking better because the most abuse that your vehicle takes is in drive you want that drive sign perfect you have your backlash set you need three pictures you need pinion high opinion low now let's put up my middle finger opinion high pinion low and perfect those are the only three pictures you need [Music] this isn't a complete guide how to do a ring opinion install all we're doing is showing you a little tricks that we have little things that we do when we install this what the pattern is how to change pattern once that all set and the pattern is good then you take it apart for final assembly where the crush leaf new seal and all that stuff go together we tried to get several different patterns to show up on camera so we actually we put it together and we kind of had a really good pattern out of the gate so we took it apart a couple times and re-shimmed it so we could get the pattern to move around so we could kind of show on camera you know what the different depths and results would be step one set the pinion preload to ensure an accurate reading by torquing the pinion nut until there is a slight amount of drag when rotating but no lateral or extra motion do not install the crush sleeve until after a proper pattern is achieved tighten the nut with hand tools to avoid damaging the bearing avoid using an impact if at all possible step 2 set the backlash this is a range set by the manufacturer we recommend starting mid-range backlash can then be adjusted by adding and removing side shims to bring the carrier closer and further from the pinion teeth step 3 brush on a solid coat of marking compound to several ring gear teeth drive and coast side rotate the ring gear so that the painted teeth make contact with the pinion teeth check the pattern to see what pinion shim adjustments may be necessary i go back to tom's thing it's a hamburger bun i don't know how many years ago he's talked about hamburger buns and i've that's what i've stuck to and customers understand that too we could all relate to a hamburger bun you know you got a top bun you got a bottom bun if you're too shallow you basically have a straight line at the top of the tooth of the gear and it looks like a hamburger bun flipped upside down on the bottom when that tooth gets together it cuts off the top of that pattern creates a small pattern right there and you know you're too shallow to opposite would be too deep where at the bottom of the gear you have a flat edge where the pinion runs off the ring gear and then you have the top of a hamburger bun too shallow or too deep what ends up happening is the teeth are not approaching each other at a somewhat parallel angle they're not coming together smoothly flat where they come on and approach flat and comes off that's what makes that defined higher low edge so yeah when you have a bad angle it will come off and it will ride on the edge of the tooth at a minimum you get noise the medium effect is that you'll have accelerated wear over time and then the worst case is if you get enough leverage on the edge of those teeth and you hit it hard enough with the shock load on your torque you can check the gear anytime you make a change you always have to go back to the backlash manufacturer recommends eight to ten thousands that's where you need to be manufacturings are different but you can't change opinion depth and just uh i'm gonna leave my backlash where it falls you need to adjust otherwise you cannot read it properly backlash will change a pattern it's not supposed to or meant to change a pattern your pinion depth is meant to change the pattern so to go back to the backlash you've had over and over you get a better result on pinion depth at the end of the day it's about getting it to mesh smoothly so when you get the pattern right it should mesh and rotate smoothly even at a slow speed even at a speed that you're just doing it by hand and rotating if there's any doubt if it's going to be a noisy or quiet gear it will show up usually just by rotating that assembly by hand you are actually feeling if you can feel any slight lumpiness at all if it's smooth it's silk rotating by hand if there's no feel or any noise or any tapping or anything then it's probably going to run as a quiet year see the tickets over here does that get a better pattern yeah yeah because it's using the dragon opinion when it becomes a decent pattern or a good pattern it almost has like a football look it's the meat of the tooth you can get a nice oval pattern and you can rotate it and it's smooth it's going to be a good setup sometimes you look at the pattern you can't ever get that pattern exactly where you wish it could be you know whether it was the cut right whether it's the housing maybe has just a slight variance in it where you know the teeth aren't meshing to where it would be ideal to get that pattern if you can get it somewhat centered the meat of the tooth you don't have any abrupt tooth edges digging in gouging which would show up as tapping or a slight lumpy feeling as you're rotating the assembly if you can't tell by the look if it's perfect you can tell by the feel if the field is smooth it's going to run smooth both sides drive side closest and close side yeah set the opinion depth get the proper amount of preload enough to hold it firmly in place set the backlash in the middle and then run a pattern focusing on the drive side and if it looks good and it rotates smoothly you're done the pattern's been determined you can proceed to the final installation you can use the crush sleeve loctite and torque everything to the manufacturer's spec that's it got more questions want us to cover something in greater depth drop a message in the comments below interested in more parts comparisons vehicle tips and installer tricks like and subscribe to stay notified about the next fun project in the garage

Channel: Rear Wheel Performance

Views: 168,196

Keywords: gear change, reading contact patterns, gear patterns, ring gear and pinnion patterns, gear contact patterns, pinion patterns, ring gear patterns, Rear Wheel Performance, F150, Ford F150

Id: 0Lzw1wPgc8U

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 22 2021