Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by ss wannabee

Getting tired of these moves and out-sourcing....HEY Motive....bring gear production
back to the USA!....WANT a "made in USA" product...in my Chevrolet race car!

American JOBS at stake!

Well...in addition to Motive gear, you will have to ask a lot of other companies to do so. The company that makes the gears for motive also a manufacturer for gears used in helicopter gear boxes built in the USA and they also make gears for the automotive OEM's.
If you have quality escapements in the automotive and aerospace industries that use AS9100 quality specs, you will have them too in aftermarket products.

[Pat Cook]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

For the vast majority of OE 12 bolt housings, start with a 0.035" shim on the pinion. Odds are, you'll be within 0.005" of where you need to be. If you're taking a similar gear out, use the shim from the previous pinion, and you'll be within spitting distance.

The numbers they give you are the opinions of the guy running the Gleason machine they test the gears on. What matters is the pattern.

And yeah, unfortunately, Richmond hasn't been great lately, and Motive buying them is quite unlikely to improve that.

Started doing this a couple of years ago and have good success. Use the old shims and check the pattern and they are usual right on. The only one that I ran across was in a Jeep that a shop tried to setup....it was a mess. Didn't have the old shims took awhile to figure that one.

[Paul Merolla]

Originally Posted by Tod Lane

We made ours because we do so many in my shop. The RAYTECH tool is a big help too.

http://www.ratechmfg.com/toc.htm

Talk to Mary there.

Don't work for them, have used them and I am just passing along the info

Good info, Tod - I wish I had heard of them before I did my 12-bolt. What about their "Smart Sleeve?" They say duty cycle is better than a spacer and shims. http://www.ratechmfg.com/smart%20sleeve.htm
That would eliminate the idea of honing a bearing.
As a side note, I bought used gears when I was putting the car together. When I went to press the pinion bearing on, it just slid over by hand. Turns out the previous owner's setup guy takes a little off all his pinions to make setup easier. A few people predicted disaster at the time, but after 60 or so runs this year the oil came out clean and the pattern looks great.

[CMcAllister]

Richmond stuff has been questionable for a number of years. The Motive, Italian stuff, on the other hand, has been good. Nice finish, easy to set up, nice looking pattern. I was glad to hear Motive bought Richmond. According to their website, Motive is a division of Midwest Truck and Auto Parts in Chicago. Who knows if it's American owned. The no name Chinese stuff is to be avoided.

I have set up tools, but rarely use them. They would get it close, but I found I always had to fudge it one way or the other a little bit. 1 or 2 thou makes a difference in the pattern. Typically, I just start with what came out of the old set-up and work from there. If I don't have that, I start with a typical shim for that rear. On a 12 bolt, it would be a .025. I like to use the ones under the bearing race or I will polish the pinion to get a semi-light press fit on the bearing so that it comes off with no damage. I set up according to the pattern. That's the final determining factor anyway. Randy's has a nice selection of tools and quality parts.

ETA...On anything other than a normal street car, it gets an adjustable solid spacer kit for pinion preload.

[HandOverFist]

It's a given that most here already know how to pattern a gear. The issue is spec's provided by a manufacturer that are nearly a 1/4" off. Imagine if a camshaft or another critical part was shipped with similar wacked spec's...just not acceptable by today's standards.

[CMcAllister]

Originally Posted by HandOverFist

It's a given that most here already know how to pattern a gear. The issue is spec's provided by a manufacturer that are nearly a 1/4" off. Imagine if a camshaft or another critical part was shipped with similar wacked spec's...just not acceptable by today's standards.

I agree, the numbers should be right since they are based off of being run on a machine. I was just stating that I rarely pay attention to those numbers and would not return a gear set for that reason. If they are obviously machined wrong, then they would go back.

[Dyno]

could the number posted on the pinion be in milimeters? Just a thought. Dyno

[Tod Lane]

Originally Posted by Paul Merolla

Good info, Tod - I wish I had heard of them before I did my 12-bolt. What about their "Smart Sleeve?" They say duty cycle is better than a spacer and shims. http://www.ratechmfg.com/smart%20sleeve.htm
That would eliminate the idea of honing a bearing.
As a side note, I bought used gears when I was putting the car together. When I went to press the pinion bearing on, it just slid over by hand. Turns out the previous owner's setup guy takes a little off all his pinions to make setup easier. A few people predicted disaster at the time, but after 60 or so runs this year the oil came out clean and the pattern looks great.

We pretty much use the smart sleeve and pitch the regular crush sleeves or shim and spacers in most applications. MUCH easier to set preload than the old style crush sleeve.

Alot of their stuff is made there in cincy and pricing is good.

[HandOverFist]

I may try the "Smart Sleeve" of Ratech's on the next gearset...supposedly more stable with less than half of the normal torque values.

[trmnatr]

Someone mentioned used gears, just a tip which IMO is important. Before I remove a good uses set, I mark the gear teeth to the pinion teeth so when I install it, it will ride/mesh the same way. Some people say no big deal, but I have never had a problem doing this