hey all.. i'm in the middle of a gear swap on my 8.8 axle.. heres my dilemma:
I'm pulling out a set of 4.10's which worked fine, no gear noise for many 10second runs in my 86 stang. The gears are still perfect. I am installing 4.88 ford motorsport gears to better match up with the rpm needs of my new engine.
I figured i could just measure the overall thickness of my old pinion with the shim that was in it (total pinion thickness/depth), and then just measure up the new one I was installing, and add the correct shim to get the same pinion/depth/thickness as the old pinion.. all seems well, but I just want to verify two things:
1) The old gears are not ford motorsport gears. they are aftermarket. The new gears are ford motorsport gears. ford "supposedly" sets their gears up to work with a standard .030 shim, and sometimes they are machined +2,-3, but not much off that.
2) The new ring gear is somewhat thicker than the old ring gear... is this just because of the larger number of teeth due to the 4.88s vs. 4.10s or is this added thickness going to destroy my theory/method of installing my new gears using the old pinion's total thickness/depth? or perhaps the added thickness/teeth angle is just going to affect my backlash shim settings and not bother my pinion depth?
The new ford motor gears required about .0175 of shim (as opposed to the quote "standard .030" that someone told me ford gears all utilize...) to equal(match) the old pinion thickness/depth of 1.908. I know i can just install the whole thing and read the teeth with marking compound,but its just a real pain to put it all together and then pull it all apart again, pull the bearing off, and put in a different shim. and no, i don't have access to a pinion depth gauge.. so i gotta do this the old fashioned way.
so bottom line is.. for a baseline.. match my old pinion depth which worked fine, or throw it all to the wind and put a .030 shim in there?
thanks!
I'm pulling out a set of 4.10's which worked fine, no gear noise for many 10second runs in my 86 stang. The gears are still perfect. I am installing 4.88 ford motorsport gears to better match up with the rpm needs of my new engine.
I figured i could just measure the overall thickness of my old pinion with the shim that was in it (total pinion thickness/depth), and then just measure up the new one I was installing, and add the correct shim to get the same pinion/depth/thickness as the old pinion.. all seems well, but I just want to verify two things:
1) The old gears are not ford motorsport gears. they are aftermarket. The new gears are ford motorsport gears. ford "supposedly" sets their gears up to work with a standard .030 shim, and sometimes they are machined +2,-3, but not much off that.
2) The new ring gear is somewhat thicker than the old ring gear... is this just because of the larger number of teeth due to the 4.88s vs. 4.10s or is this added thickness going to destroy my theory/method of installing my new gears using the old pinion's total thickness/depth? or perhaps the added thickness/teeth angle is just going to affect my backlash shim settings and not bother my pinion depth?
The new ford motor gears required about .0175 of shim (as opposed to the quote "standard .030" that someone told me ford gears all utilize...) to equal(match) the old pinion thickness/depth of 1.908. I know i can just install the whole thing and read the teeth with marking compound,but its just a real pain to put it all together and then pull it all apart again, pull the bearing off, and put in a different shim. and no, i don't have access to a pinion depth gauge.. so i gotta do this the old fashioned way.
so bottom line is.. for a baseline.. match my old pinion depth which worked fine, or throw it all to the wind and put a .030 shim in there?
thanks!
