BritishV8 Forum

I disassembled the 8.8 in the back of my TR7 tonight in hopes of installing new gears.  I bought a set of ford gears from late model restoration.  Maybe this is what new Ford gears are supposed to look like, but they look like used gears to me.  Would you say this is a new set of gears?  

Yep, those look new to me.
You'll get a bit of pattern on them from the inspection process. If they'd been run you'd have silver showing. As long as the pattern is even and centered you're good to go.

Jim

Thanks Jim.

Clean the grease off so we can tell. Like Jim says, the teeth won't be black where they mesh. They will be shiney.

Agreed. Looks like a new set.
The grease is a little scetchy though.
Is it covering some rust marks?
If the teeth clean off nicely you're good to go.

Cheers
Fred

Ok Guys,
I cleaned and inspected the gears as you suggested and convinced myself that they had not been installed previously.  

Now, I am struggling to get them set up.  Here is what I have:  


The 4.10's I took out had a 0.035" pinion shim, which is what I started with even though it seemed big.  
With about 0.010" backlash, the drive pattern looked nice but the coast pattern was out on the heel (similar to the pics above).  

Reading and reading and reading, the coast pattern can be brought toward the toe by reducing the pinion shim and/or decreasing backlash.  To help myself, I have layed lines and notes on the pictures (based on Ford instructions).  If this looks wrong, let me know.  

I dropped backlash a few thou with the 0.035" shim, and it moved the drive pattern too far toward the toe.  

So, then I decided to try reducing my pinion shim.  I have tried 0.031 and 0.028, but I'm just not getting the patterns where I think I should be (See pics above).  

My thought right now is to bring the pinion shim back up (maybe try 0.033) and get the drive pattern centered up with backlash.  I'm sure the coast pattern won't look right....  

Any other experiences or suggestions you can offer would be appreciated!  

Thanks
Mike

Mike, This guy explains it pretty good. What ratio did you go with?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVb5WRUfM7Y

This is looking a bit better...



and this may be the winner:


It seems strange that reducing backlash from 12 to 9 pulled the coast pattern out onto the heel of the tooth.  Oh well.  Drive side looks good to me in the 9 to 10 thou backlash range.

Jim,  They are 3.15's, which isn't very common.  I was debating between 3.08 and 3.27... Then I was on Late Model Restoration, and saw they had Ford Racing 3.15's.

That is a great video. Thanks.  I think I watched it several months ago when I was setting up my 4.10 backlash.  

I guess I was trying to do what he said by lowering my pinion dept to try to balance heel/toe on the coast and drive sides.  He does say that weird stuff happens on some gears.  That may be my situation!