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Vanilla Gorrilla blog

Big thanks to rob for hooking me up with some upper bushings. Thanks mang. Good talking to ya.

So I set my first pattern on the dana 30 tonight. Need some insight. It looks to me like the pinion is either a hair to deep or too shallow. The thing is if it's too deep I have no shims in it right now. Just the baffle is behind the inner race so what do I do if that's the case. Pull the baffle?

Backlash is at .09
Here are the pics.

Drive
aby6y9u6.jpg


Coast
sudyryjy.jpg
 
Shoot it looks good right there. I'm tempted to say its good. That pattern does look a tiny bit shallow. Its a little more to the toe side of the ring gear which means you will end up increasing backlash a bit. At that point you will probably end up putting shims under the pinion to increase pinion depth since it will be way too shallow and I wouldn't want to run more than 9 -10 thousandths up front anyway so I would want to bring it in. which will bring bl in some more . Is the setup race for the inner pinion bearing seated all the way in? Pinion nut torqued down right? Bearing caps on? I always use this write up :http://www.pirate4x4.com/articles/tech/billavista/Gear_Setup
 
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its tough to say since I think that pattern looks pretty good where its at. Its more like, it could always be better, but it looks good there. I have no idea what I am talking about really, but it looks like if it was my gear setup I would increase BL by 1-2 thousandths. Then check pinion depth and go from there.
 
keep a note of the shim stacks and you can always go back to this setup if its the best you can get. 9 thousandths BL is good and the pinion depth is probably OK to run. But once you open up BL a few thousandths then you will be able to probably bring the pinion in a few thousandths and that will possibly get you to a point where you can dial in BL and pinion depth.

I can tell you that when I was doing my gears, even when I thought it was perfect, I put final bearings back on and had to reset BL and pinion depth which sucks. if you are not using setup bearings then you will be fine.
 
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so did you bring BL out to say 11 thousandths first then bring the pinion in a bit after ward, or just bring BL into 5 thousandths instead of out first and not mess with the pinion at all? I ran a bunch of patterns a night for like a week.
 
I didn't change the backlash at all. I added .015 to the pinion. That also tightened up the backlash as well. The bearing preload for both the pinion and carrier were set. These are brand new final bearings.
 
That second pattern is lookin pretty good and your pre-load/back lash is looking good too. Looks like it's time to slap it together and move to the other axle now. Then get'em broke in and lets go wheelin. :D
 
Hell yeah. That's what I was hoping. I buttoned up the axle and will be making a run to the Richmond pick n pull to grab two pairs of shafts. I have some spicer 760s to go in the main set and I'll keep the others as spares. Got my track bar mount and bushing squared and got a new heim from ruffstuff. So the front end just needs to get put back in this weekend.
Tonight I'll start pulling apart the 8.8. Reusing those bearings because I rebuilt that axle last year. Still have all the shims from the install kit. Picked up a few extra crushsleeves. Things are looking good.

Once all the suspension work is done I need to find out why the jeep isn't starting. Yay. Got a new fuel pump but the old one is working again. I'll cross that bridge next week.
 
Nevermind.

pattern looks good. with your wheeling style id take the tighter setup up front . It should help.
Edit again. I thought pinion bearing pre load should be around 20 in pounds? Just an FYI the pre load increases quite a bit when you put the final nut on with a oil seal and all the other stuff. I know mine did. I was shooting for 15-19 in lbs and I think it bumped up a bit from there .

Are you going to weld the rear?
 
Yeah 15-19 seemed better to me too but sure enough I looked it up in a spicer service manual. 20-40 inchpounds is what is recommended. I'm pretty close to 30 after final assembly so we will see.

Yes I will be welding the rear diff up. I'm looking forward to a bit more traction this year. Going to try true old sluice box up again.
 
I think when I set my D30 pinion preload I shot for 35. Felt way too tight but I'm rockin it anyway
 
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