Custom Gearbox is very loud

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

So we just build our first ever custom gearbox, and it's one of the "opened" once. As in, you can see the gears and all, and when testing it we feel like it's very very loud compared to anything wev'e had before.
Now, all our previous gearboxes were enclosed once, like the ballshifter for example.

So what we want to know, if that loud noise is just how it is supposed to sound like with an opened gearbox, or is that means that something's wrong.

Thanks!

Going of off the advice already offered in this thread, the first thing to do is check the actual center distances between your gears. The other thing is to make sure your shafts are perfectly parallel. Gears can take a few thou of play in the center distances without too much issue. They can not take a few thou of axial misalignment without protesting.
If your center distances are at exact or anything below that, you can add a .003 to .005 to loosen the meshes up a little. If this still doesn't fix it, or your actual center distances already had a bit of space, you can try the methods GeeTwo and Type suggested, and you can try wearing the gears in by running the gearbox with no load. I've heard the run times for this need to be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. If you take this route, remember to clean your gears after the run-in period. Wipe all the grease off, use a bit of acetone to really clean the teeth, and then re-grease. Hopefully, one of those things fixes your problem.

EDIT - All the dimensions I mentioned are in inches.