420 ring and pinion

[Boss302]

Hello. Am putting a late model transmission and ring and pinion out of a 420c together. I say late model because I am pretty sure that the crawler is a 1958, but the serial tag is gone from this crawler. It is a 5 speed. A bearing went out of this transmission so we completely tore the whole thing apart. Same shafts and gears including ring and pinion are being put back into this transmission/rear end case with all new bearings and seals from front to back. Was wondering if anyone had any tricks to setting preload on the pinion shaft bearings without the use of the tool that the John Deere service manual calls for? The pinion shaft does not have the measurement etched into it either like the manual says it should.

[JimAnderson]

I take it you are interested in the cone point adjustment rather than preload.You could put the original shim pack in under the pinion cup
and install the ring gear carrier.Paint the pinion with prussian blue and
check the contact pattern.Without the setup gauge or original numbers
etched on the pinion there is little else you can do.If the pinion bearings
were not damaged a depth measurement fom the back end of the case
would have given the correct pinion location.In my opinion,the best you
can do now is get the best match to the previous contact pattern.
luck,JimAnderson

[jtrichard]

are you using the SAME shaft and the SAME case ?? if so DO NOT lose any of the shimming and just replace the bearings reuse the shims (same locations) and you will be fine you should check the wipe as stated above just to make sure.... as for what the wipe should look like if the JD book don't show it find an OLD motors truck manual like late 50s and there will be sections in there that show wipes and how to move everything to get the correct wipe/pattern good luck

[JimAnderson]

If your R&P set has been run for many hours,most have,you will notice wear on the pinion where it has been in contact with the ring gear.It is
important to get the ring gear teeth to mesh in this wear zone.
What you don't want to see is the ring gear making any contact outside this zone.If this contact occurs you will at best have rapid wear and
at worst chipped or broken teeth.Once up and running it would be advisable to put some hours on the machine under very light load just
in case.Luck JimAnderson

[Boss302]

Yes. The same shafts, same gears, and same case is being used. Only thing new is bearings. Thanks for the input. What you all told me is what I had planned on doing, but was wondering is there were any better ways out there to go about this. As we put new ring and pinion in another crawler a few years ago, and after about 20 hours the pinion gear was completely junk. So I thought I would maybe take some new insight before approaching this one. Thank you

[jtrichard]

when ever you use new R&P you MUST do a complete setup and that can be a royal pain in the @@@

[Lavoy]

Gauge is used to set pinion shaft depth, not preload, that is a separate issue.
Lavoy