Kenworth 850 Off Highway

[ihbuilder]

I'm wondering If the gear mesh is a little loose . Yea put the alum case on . I have that on mine . The plastic may be flexing just enough under load to tear them up . Worse case you could lock em up Turn a solid spool on your lathe ? to put the ring gear on . Looks like you got enough weight and length it shouldn't effect steering to much . + you wont get stuck unless you spin all 4

[RCP57]

Originally Posted by ihbuilder

I'm wondering If the gear mesh is a little loose . Yea put the alum case on . I have that on mine . The plastic may be flexing just enough under load to tear them up . Worse case you could lock em up Turn a solid spool on your lathe ? to put the ring gear on . Looks like you got enough weight and length it shouldn't effect steering to much . + you wont get stuck unless you spin all 4

After I broke the first one I spent the time to make sure the gear mesh was as tight as possible(shims). I can see how the plastic would flex under this much load and cause the gear lash to change though. An aluminum case should stop any flexing and that may be enough. Like you said I could change it to a solid axle and that would stop it for sure! Then I'll break something else...

[RCP57]

I did some more fiddling and I think I made some progress. There is no shims for the planet gears and upon further inspection there needs to be. You can't get good gear lash by using the supplied shims on the side gears alone so I made some out of washers for the other gears. I had to assemble and disassemble them a few times each, carefully filing the washers each time. Seems to be much better now as it towed the gen-set from one end of the shop to the other with no complaints even while turning left and right.

Here's what breaks...

Here's what I'm hoping fixed it...

and a couple pictures of my trucks together....




Thanks for lookin