Setup Bearing Frustration

[Gatorfanjosh]

I am regearing my Dana 30 after completing the rear a few months ago. This axle has been much more of a pain, I attempted to use shims behind my carrier bearing races like i did on my rear but quickly found out how aggrivating it was. I decided to pull the bearings from my carrier and use one of the old bearings and new races as a setup bearing. Without the shims under the new bearing races i had to cut the cages on my brand new Koyo bearing to use my bearing splitter on the race. I got my backlash (.008-.009) and pattern dialed in where i wanted it and setup the pinion side. I went to Oreilys and got 2 new bearings; they were chinese house brand. I wasnt thrilled about this but my local options are limited and i took off work today to get this done. I pulled my setup bearings and installed new bearings with shims used from setup and when i went to install the carrier it was way to tight to get fully seated. I pulled the carrier and measured the dimension from inner race to the top of outer race with it sitting on top. I could visually see that the race stuck out farther that when i tested it on my setup bearing side by side. I found that the outer race was .005 taller with the new bearings. I blamed it on cheap chinese bearings. Found a store across town that had Federal Mogul National brand bearings in stock and even though they are chinese still i had more faith in the name brand with 3 year warranty.

Started over by cutting another set of brand new bearings and removing them. Before i installed the National brand i put them side by side with one of the setup bearings i used and measured the height. They were much closer to the old Timken bearing i used for setup but still about .003 taller so i pulled .003 from the shim pack under each carrier bearing. I got the carrier installed and while it was still tighter getting in i was able to get the caps on and tight.

Now backlash is only .004. I am at a loss what to do and i really dont want to throw another set of bearings away.

Does anyone have any ideas to help me out. Does .005 of wear on bearings seem like alot? Jeep has around 160k on it.

 

[macleanflood]

I'd trust your original bearings and setup over anything Chinese. 160k is nothing to a reasonably well maintained bearing.

What prompted the change? Are you regearing?

-Mac

 

[Gatorfanjosh]

I'd trust your original bearings and setup over anything Chinese. 160k is nothing to a reasonably well maintained bearing.

What prompted the change? Are you regearing?

-Mac

Yeah regearing. One of the original bearings has some putting on the rollers. I looked into ordering one of those $90 clamshell pullers but Amazon says a week to deliver.

 

[hosejockey61]

Live and learn. I never recommend anyone to use used bearings or races for setup. They have plenty of wear on them that can easily change readings >.005 which makes them virtually useless for installing new gears.

My recommendation is ALWAYS to use brand new races and/or bearings that are the same manufacturer when doing setup.

 

[Gatorfanjosh]

Live and learn. I never recommend anyone to use used bearings or races for setup. They have plenty of wear on them that can easily change readings >.005 which makes them virtually useless for installing new gears.

My recommendation is ALWAYS to use brand new races and/or bearings that are the same manufacturer when doing setup.

So you think I need to cut these off, buy 4 new bearings and use grind 2 outs and use for setup and then install the other 2 new ones? Or do I roll the dice and move a few thousand from non ring gear side to ring gear side and install new?

Do you know what the clamshell actually pulls the bearing on? To me it has to engage the cage right? And it uses the downward pressure on the outer race to keep it from damaging itself. Thinking about trying to mock something up to remove these since I will probably end up junking them any way.

 

[hosejockey61]

So you think I need to cut these off, buy 4 new bearings and use grind 2 outs and use for setup and then install the other 2 new ones? Or do I roll the dice and move a few thousand from non ring gear side to ring gear side and install new?

Do you know what the clamshell actually pulls the bearing on? To me it has to engage the cage right? And it uses the downward pressure on the outer race to keep it from damaging itself. Thinking about trying to mock something up to remove these since I will probably end up junking them any way.

No, what I said was what advice I give people. You are at the point now where it will cost you more than if you would have had a new race to begin with. My guess is you're still far ahead of what an actual re-gear would have cost you.

At this point, you're stabbing in the dark at a correct depth until you get it. But you won't know until you press the final race in. And if it's wrong? Then what?

 

[Gatorfanjosh]

No, what I said was what advice I give people. You are at the point now where it will cost you more than if you would have had a new race to begin with. My guess is you're still far ahead of what an actual re-gear would have cost you.

At this point, you're stabbing in the dark at a correct depth until you get it. But you won't know until you press the final race in. And if it's wrong? Then what?

Definitely still in the green on cost. For what it's worth I did use the new outer races with the setup bearings that I am using on the new bearings.

Also to clarify the everything on the pinion is still good, just the carrier bearings causing me grief with the lack of backlash. Of course I won't be certain until I recheck the pattern after getting the lash back where it was.

 

[Gatorfanjosh]

Mccleans reply got my thinking that I had 4 Timken races from replacing bearings on both carriers. I looked through them and found the best one, no pitting and couldn't feel any wear with my fingernails where bearings ride, vs don't. My thought was for this rusty 26 year old Jeep that spends 80% of its life on the road and less than 6k miles per year I was willing to roll the dice on the Timken race.

I installed the old race on the ring gear side and installed the carrier. It still required several good blows with the dead blow so I'm confident there is still good preload. I measured backlash and it is .008 now. I was happy with that because it matched what I saw with the setup bearings. I checked my pattern and got the results below. I'm happy with it to send down the road (after patching the front control arm section of frame) unless you all think my logic is all wrong. Which is very possible since this is now the 2nd axle I've regeared.

 

[hosejockey61]

With what you're facing I would say that is a runnable pattern. It's a front axle and your coast side looks runnable, so I'd call it good.