New gears and the new whine.

[Creager]

My old thread got sacraficed with the old modified forum. Bascially, there seems to be a very high-pitched whining somewhere along my driveline. The thing is, it seems that i cant really tell where the noise is comming from. I've showed 3 other people the whiring im getting. All 3 of them said they think its comming from the frontend. I just recently set up 4.56 gears in the rear, about 500 miles ago. I also had a new tranny swapped in 1500 miles ago... could this be the culprit?

I drained the gear oil out of the differential for the 500 mile change. There was only a little bit of the fine peices of metal on the magnets. I checked my patteren and it looked fine. It was the same way as when i put it in. My backlash also was the same as when i installed it. The sides of the teeth on the ring gear have a mirror finish to them.

One thing though, on the very fine edge between the heelside and the coast side of each tooth there is a small, very tiny, maybe .001" of a nick taken (beveled) out...

On "Randy's Ring and Pinion" they descibe the noise could as possibly being the pinion bearing preload loosing up; only the pinon will produce a high pitched howling or whirring since its smaller, producing a higher frequency. If my pattern was next to perfect, wouldnt that mean that the pinion bearing preload was indeed not loosing up? In otherwords, the differential is fine and i dont need to mess with it? But the nicking i was talking about earlier? I consulted 'techhelp@AccuAuto' with the nicking problem and he said it would just smooth out over time. Is that causing the whine?

 

[86caprirs]

No no...he means the preload....what happends is you have a crush sleave between the front(small) bearing on the pinion and a pinion sleave flange. What that should be set to is about 20 Inch pounds of rotational force...meening it takes 20 inch pounds to rotate the pinion. So when this loosens off it just meens you loose your tention on the nut holding the pinion tight.What this will cause is a whine noise on tip in acceleration.The other thing could be a bad pinion bearings too.I take it you installed new bearings and installed the cups in right???Usually when i hear this noise in a diff, i end up rebearing it....You pay have to take the pinion out and check the bearing surfaces.

 

[Creager]

No no...he means the preload....what happends is you have a crush sleave between the front(small) bearing on the pinion and a pinion sleave flange. What that should be set to is about 20 Inch pounds of rotational force...meening it takes 20 inch pounds to rotate the pinion. So when this loosens off it just meens you loose your tention on the nut holding the pinion tight.What this will cause is a whine noise on tip in acceleration.The other thing could be a bad pinion bearings too.I take it you installed new bearings and installed the cups in right???Usually when i hear this noise in a diff, i end up rebearing it....You pay have to take the pinion out and check the bearing surfaces.

Yes my preload was ~26inlb when i installed it. All the bearings and the races were brand new. Only thing used was the carrier bearings, but they were only 6 months old.

So are you saying the noise (if the pininon bearing preload did loosen) would be normal? i havent gotten to check the pinion bearings yet. Actually today i worked on changing the fluid in the tranny hoping that was causing the whining .

What this will cause is a whine noise on tip in acceleration.

its not just on acceleration. Its constant. most audible at 15 mph... and it sounds like its comming from the front. I checked my rear differential (that i recently set gears up in) and they checked out perfect, except for the bearings which would require a teardown. I also checked my new tranny, and it was full of fluid, no leaks. So i changed it with fresh Mobil 1 synthetic ATF anyway. Im begining to wonder if maybe a front U-joint or Bearing could be causing this noise. I havent known eaither of which to cause a high-pitched metallic grinding noise though... I haven't done my front pumpkin yet

 

[Creager]

ok so i tore down the axle and i found the problem. The Head pinion bearing started deforming and was dragging along bearing race... hense my high-pitched noise. The problem originated from the pinion preload loosing due to the pinion nut backing off. my solution? new bearing/race, crushsleeve and a bottle of greenlock-tite

Autozone seems to be one of the only retailers of Timken bearings in my area. All the other shops and places on the internet sell BCA/National brand which ill pass on. So i went to the AutoZone closest to me, and they will have to order it. So i went to the AutoZone webpage just to buy it off line (and they had a good deal on next-day air). Wait.. WTF my credit card is invalid? For some reason AutoZone thinks my credit card is invalid. I had to call their coorperate office just to hear "Yeah you need to call your credit card company." So i check my bank account, i call my bank... there is no problem with my card, autozone's coorperate are just a bunch of lazy morons =)

Anyone know of a good retailer of Timken bearings?

 

[86caprirs]

well atleast you got it solved now.....The pinion bearings usually cause the noise you discribed.

 

[Creager]

Yeah, the head bearing was a lil deformed..

i probably could have kept gettin on it with it. I wasnt totally destroyed. it was only a little section that was pretruding. But no point in leaving it hahah

 

[Creager]

*** AHH !! ***

Ok i have pressed a new head bearing onto the pinion. I also put a new race in for the head pinion bearing.

I ran into a bit of a snag, that is really puzzling me. When i get down to setting the pinion bearing preload, the preload seems to be ~25inlbs before i even crush the crush sleeve; in otherwords it takes 25inlbs to turn the pinion before i even start crushing the crush sleeve!

Now i can turn the pinion nut for a good while and it will stay ~25inlbs before the crush sleeve crushes. But when the bearings to contact the races, the preload goes way up out of specification.

i dont get it? why is my pinion dragging so bad that i cant even set the preload?

 

[IZwack]

did u ever solve this problem? itd be great if u could post an update on how u fixed it for future users. kthanks!

 

[Creager]

*** AHH !! ***

Ok i have pressed a new head bearing onto the pinion. I also put a new race in for the head pinion bearing.

I ran into a bit of a snag, that is really puzzling me. When i get down to setting the pinion bearing preload, the preload seems to be ~25inlbs before i even crush the crush sleeve; in otherwords it takes 25inlbs to turn the pinion before i even start crushing the crush sleeve!

Now i can turn the pinion nut for a good while and it will stay ~25inlbs before the crush sleeve crushes. But when the bearings to contact the races, the preload goes way up out of specification.

i dont get it? why is my pinion dragging so bad that i cant even set the preload?

It turns out the pinion seal i bought from Advanced Auto was a total peice of crap. Stay away from 'Motor City' brand seals. That is what was causing my problem with the preload. The inside diameter of the seal (where the dust shield would sit) was just a hair too short. In turn the dush shield on the pinion flange was dragging along the inside of the seal... thus an extra 25in lbs of resistance or drag on the pinion when i was trying to turn it.

It might have not been a problem in the long run to use the seal, it was just throwing my preload off so it was kind of confusing.

I used BCA National's pinion seal, which is made MUCH better. Infact BCA makes a very quality product, i would recommend them over Timken anyday (for their seals of course). Its not the basic green seal (or orange from timken). Their seals are built MUCH thicker, so it doesnt bend or warp during installation. And their seal also comes with a ring of silicone built into it, something i havent seen ANY other brand do. Very cool.

The whining noise is still there... althought not as apparent as it was before. I changed out the U-joints with no luck. I figured that might have been the problem, although it did fix other issues, i didnt fix the actual one i was going for.

So the issue still remains. The gears make noise.

It is possible that its the Tranny i am using. I have no real way to find out for sure. The transmission was put in mabye 3000 miles before the gears.

But also it is known that if a gear set is set up with a PERFECT heal/toe patern in mind (IE Pinion depth) then it could become noisey. Because a perfect heal/toe patteren is usually impractical. Mainly because differential housings are not all machined the same. I changed the pinion depth with my jump from 3.27 to 4.56. With ford rear-ends, you probably dont even have to. (ford uses THICK gears on all their coorperate rear ends...smart)

Also 4.56 is a BIG gear. BIG gears are known to make noise. This is what randy's ring and pinion told me "if it hasent broke by now [almost 10k miles after install], then you did something right... probably too right."

 

[Zeke #2]

Could you drop the rear drive shaft, drive in 4hi on the front axle only? This will have your rear axle pinion running on the "coast" side. If the noise stays it might be the tranny.

 

[Creager]

Could you drop the rear drive shaft, drive in 4hi on the front axle only? This will have your rear axle pinion running on the "coast" side. If the noise stays it might be the tranny.

thats a good idea i havent tried that...

after 4 months the noise is still there. it isnt any louder or quiter and it still works intermittently...

I havent determined for sure, but i think i got something in the hubs, like a rock or some excessive grease. OR the chain in my trasfercase has stretched a wee bit. Not sure which, guess im going to have to wait until something brakes since those parts are too expensive to just throw money at it.

if i can, im gonna try to find some spare manual hubs at a junkyard, but that might be a difficult find. if i can get it for cheap ill just buy a auto-hub assembly and test it out.

the transfercase, i dont know how to single that out... any ideas would be appericated.

what i need is a skateboard so i can have someone drive down the street while i hold on and listen for these noises haha.

 

[mynameisaric]

Use rollerblades, they're much quieter than skateboards. Do you still have the noise month and a half later?

 

[Creager]

Use rollerblades, they're much quieter than skateboards. Do you still have the noise month and a half later?

haha funny you bring this up. Yep, the noise is still there, intermittent as usual.

so its been 6-7 months... 10k miles... and I still have no clue where this noise is comming from haha.

I tried the skateboard idea... heheheh didnt work out as quite as well as i hoped for. It got kinda scary riding a skateboard at 15-25mph down a POS road hahah. I hit a little pebble and went FLYING!! needless to say no more skateboards for a while. haha, if it ever snowed in down here i could get on a snowboard and try this; its much less scary doing 25 on one of those.

 

[mynameisaric]

that just sounds like fun. tried it last winter, but the plows around here are tooo fast.

 

[Creager]

hjahahah, were you 'plow hopping?' thats just dangrous, scary, and straight up sounds like some fun.

Ok so update on THIS. i pulled my clutch off today, and LOW AND BEHOLD, the pilot bearing was IN PEICES! Also, the throwout bearing dont look much better. Im not sure how these parts can be related to this issue, but they are a good start

now that i have the tranny/transfercase out i can try and pin point the noise. But since ive gotten them out i havent been able to re-create the noise. Im thinking it might have been the pilot bearing.

 

[sn0border88]

if it ever snowed in down here i could get on a snowboard and try this; its much less scary doing 25 on one of those.

If you need a hand...

 

[Creager]

yeah, bring some snow down here!

haha, the otherday i broke a fall with my neck... the helmet actually made it worse. But im not the one to complain about a helmet, saved my ass from sudden vegative state, many of times... but this time, youch...

 

[mynameisaric]

hjahahah, were you 'plow hopping?' thats just dangrous, scary, and straight up sounds like some fun.

haha no. i meant they plow the streets to fast, so i cant do any carsledding or carboarding.

 

[Creager]

oh man no kidding

when it snows here, the whole city shuts down for a week. litterally, like 3 inches of snow shuts charlotte down. No snow plows haha.

 

[Creager]

So im guessing this is why i was having such an annoying issue. What do you think?

that's whats left of my pilot bearing! haha