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Spider gears pitted

bluestream1

Well-Known Member
Joined
November 9, 2005
Messages
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City, State
Waterloo Ontario
Year, Model & Trim Level
2000 XLT 4.0 SOHC 4X4
When I changed my diffy oil I noticed my side or spider gears had small pits in them. Do these gears move only when vehicle turns, or are they always moving with the pinion gear? I bought new gears, but not sure if I really need to change them. Truck has 4:10 gears with 216,000KM and has a slight whine when axel gets warmed up. I put Redline 75W140 in when I changed th oil

aaa080.jpg
 



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With a slight whine you may want to consider the gear change sometime soon.

These gears only move when the vehicle is moving. Everything from the torque converter back moves when the vehicle is moving (2wd)
 






No they only move (relative to each other) when the vehicle turns, not when the vehicle is going straight. Thats the whole point of the differential / spider gears, one side goes slower than the other.

I'd change them sometime before the cold weather hits, especially since you already have the spider gears on hand. It should only take a weekend or less.
 






Is it just me or does that gear oil look very suspect?
 






Dood:D

the carrier pin is showing a lot of wear on the lower gear surface--see the silver ring right at the top of the lower gear?

And
looks like the axle to the right has migrated inboard and is wearing on the carrier pin also--worn out gears are allowing the axle to run in a bit too far.
 






No they only move (relative to each other) when the vehicle turns, not when the vehicle is going straight. Thats the whole point of the differential / spider gears, one side goes slower than the other.

I'd change them sometime before the cold weather hits, especially since you already have the spider gears on hand. It should only take a weekend or less.

IZwack, do you mean when driving straight the spider gears are moving (in motion) but both sides are turning at the same speed. When in a turn, they move at different speeds, is this correct? There is never is a situation where they are not turning. Could this be causing the slight whine noise because of the pits?

The gear oil you see is the factory fill after about 177.000KM. It was november so fluid was cold. It looks greenish, but when drained in a pan it looked fine. I spend almost $50 for the Redline, and I hate to have to drain it out and waste it.

That pic may be a bit decieving, I will post some more when I get home from work.
 






I mean the whole thing (carrier, ring gear, spider gears and axle shafts) are all rotating at the same rate when driving straight. So relatively speaking, they are not rotating relative to one another.

And yeah I suspected that pic to have been taken in cold weather, gear oil isn't ad hazy and doesn't cling (viscosity) to parts at normal temps. As for the wear marks that are not on the spider gears' teeth, I think most of that is reflection on the metal parts covered with a thin coat of gear oil.
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