Custom Gearbox Problems

[baronep]

For this season we had some custom gearboxes manufactured using the Andy Mark toughbox parts, making the design integral to the frame for weight saving reasons. However, after putting them together we noticed that they are very, very noisy. I have heard that this is pretty common with new toughboxes, but it still seems outrageously loud. I will be running them on the bench to wear them in tomorrow, but does anyone have any ideas why they would be running so loud. (And yes we did use grease, white lithium grease specifically and a lot of it)

[chadr03]

Is there any backlash in the gears? (Can you hold one shaft and slightly twist the other one back and fourth?). Gears can make a lot of noise if they are meshed too tightly. Did y'all make the gear housing or purchase (Center distance might be too small)? If the pressure angle of the mating gears is off you can get a really noisy gearset. You might try to mix and match similar gears to see if some might have been manufactured thinner and thicker. If all else fails they might quiet down by wearing them in a bit.

I'm not real familiar with the andymark custom gear boxes, but design gears daily.

[Cecil]

Make sure they are put together correctly, this will cause a lot of noise if done improperly.

Take the box apart and look at the gears. On all of them, you will see a small raised part on one side of it right around the hole in the center. Make sure that each one of these bumps are pointed toward the OUTSIDE of the case. this spaces them out from the bearings and the walls, and will eliminate that grinding noise. I would highly recommend you check this before attempting to break them in, as this can cause a lot of wear on those gears.