88´TransAM

Hi.

Before some thousands of km, i made a rear end modification. I swapped my ring and pinion from 2.73 to 3.23 with a set from "richmond gears" matched to my carrier 2 differential.
I have to say, i am master mechanical and i made a lot of differentials in my live and i never had problems. But in this case, my rear end is noisy over 40 mph while thrust operation. I think, the hardened richmond gears are the reason. This is really annoyingly !! I payed a lot for the richmond gears and now this....

Now, i think, if i would go with original ring and pinion set, rear end would be ok. But original 3.23 ring and pinion set i cannot use on my carrier 2 differential. What can i do ? Are there adapter plates available ? What would you do in my case ?

THX !!

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Richmond gears are well and widely known for being noisy. If you have the drag race ones, they are totally unsuited for the street anyway; their metallurgy is different from regular gears, and they are heat-treated differently, intended to stay somewhat soft, to absorb the shock of sudden application of power without shattering. Their tooth shape is also different. Regular gears are MUCH harder and break in drag-racing because of that: they shatter like glass. But, the softer Richmond design, while better for drag racing, plus the tooth design, tends to make them short-lived and noisy on the street.

There are PLENTY of other mfrs of gears that make the "thick" gears you need. I'd recommend getting another set from Motive, US Gear, Superior, Yukon, etc. and trying again.

88´TransAM

Yes, i know other mfrs. But how can i know which set of ring and pinion is silence. A can not spend all my money for trying and searching silence rear and gears... :-)

Can anybody recommend a special set of ring and pinion which is silence like stock ensemble ?

THX

big gear head

I know that you measure things in mm instead of inches. Richmond gears are usually set up with .007 to .009 inches of backlash. I'm assuming that you have set the backlash within this range, but sometimes increasing the backlash just a little can help with gear noise. If you increase the backlash to about .011 inches it might help. It won't hurt anything to try this and see what happens. I'm assuming that you have the pinion depth set correctly. It's true that some gears do make a little noise no matter how well they are set up, but most of the time the noise is causes by incorrect pinion depth or backlash.

Dyno Don

iTrader: (7)

I have the same problem, I installed Motive gears, I heard they were the closest to factory, I am thinking of trying US gear, would they be better?

The Motive gears were just as loud as the Richmonds.

big gear head

US Gear is the best after market gear that I know of, unless you want to pay the extra money for the AAM gears.

88´TransAM

Ok, we have metric system in germany. But i bought tools to make the measurement in inch, especially tools for this axle. And i made a lot of rear ends here in germany, this is my main job. But my richmond gears are noisy with correct pinion depth and all other measurements are correctly. So, i have to take a look for "better" set of ring and pinion.. :-)

big gear head

Try increasing the backlash first. If that doesn't help then you may need to get a 3 series differential and a better set of gears. Finding a complete rear end to swap might be difficult in your location, but that's another option.

midias

Yukon gears are the best, US gear are their gears that dont meet their yukon standards. Both are damn good though. When setup right they are silent.

big gear head

You might be right, but I don't think so. Yukon gears are imported and US Gear is made in the US. I was a Yukon dealer for about 7 or 8 years. I had problems with their gears just like almost every other brand. In my experience US Gear has been the most consistent as far as quality.

Robbie_S

I have had good luck with TrueTrac gears running quietly.

big gear head

Never heard of TrueTrac gears.

Robbie_S

Its a differential line from Eaton Detroit that uses US gears.

big gear head

I know what a Eaton Truetrac differential is, but never heard of TrueTrac ring & pinion gears.

88´TransAM

How do you think about ring gear spacers ? Then, i could use carrier 3 ring and pinion on my carrier 2...

big gear head

I don't like them at all, especially on the 7.5/7.6 rear ends. They are nothing but trouble.

86LG4Bird

iTrader: (1)

I don't know where the "Richmond gears are known to be noisy" stories come from.
I've run their standard "street" gears in ratios from 3.73 to 4.88 in GM 8.5" rearends and couldn't tell any difference from stock gear noise levels. And in that 8.5", they do not break under dragstrip use. Years and many hundred passes of launching a 3900 lb car to wheels-up 1.4X 60 times without breakage. I've run a set of their 5.57 gears, possible they could have been the softer dragrace gears, and they were very noisy.
Hard to believe they would make high quality gears for the 8.5" and lower quality for the 7.5".

big gear head

Many years ago Richmond gears were the largest selling brand. Summit and Jeg's pretty much only sold Richmond. I was told, and somewhat believe, that due to the high number of Richmond gears that were sold and the very high number of people who have no idea how to set them up correctly , that the Richmond gears got the reputation for being noisy because so many of them were set up wrong.

86LG4Bird

iTrader: (1)

That's a very simple and believable explanation

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Richmond sells 2 kinds of gears. The "street" type which are as good as anyone else's for a street application (might even be outsourced from some one of the other larger mfrs); and the "drag race only", which are NOT suitable for street use even though people buy them all the time thinking they must be good because "all the fast cars are running them".

As said, their "drag race only" ones are made of softer metal, to keep from shattering under the shock of hard launches; and their teeth are cut differently, for the same reason. The softer metal does a great job of absorbing transbrake shock loads and such without breaking into a million pieces like glass, but makes them very short-lived on the street; and their tooth design, while it also helps make the teeth "stronger" against shock loads, makes them noisy. Neither of those negatives are an issue in a single-purpose race car, but for a street car, they make them unacceptable. For most people anyway.

I doubt it's a matter of "set up wrong". WAY too many people who know what they're doing, get the same (poor) results when trying to repurpose the drag race gears into a street car. And yes, they do require somewhat different setup from stock gears, in most cases. You have to actually .. like .... read the instructions. I can't believe I just said that.

Best rule is, if your car is STRIP ONLY, then those are an excellent choice, maybe even the best. But if it EVER hits the street AT ALL, they are a mistake. They will be noisy (usually) and not last very long because the metal wears down quickly, lacking the extreme hardening that street gears get to prevent wear on them.

Think of it this way: a single trip to the grocery store and back might easily be as many miles as AN ENTIRE SEASON of drag racing. I know that for me, it is... it's around 9 miles or so, there and back, which is equivalent 36 passes if you discount putting around in the pits and any burnouts you might do. That should put the whole longevity issue into clearer focus.

big gear head

Richmond now has the Excel gears, which are a discount, cheaper made gear. Most of the time you get a warning before your purchase that the gears will make noise. I never recommend using any kind of discount gear. They almost always make noise. They might be fine if you are dirt track racing, but not good for much else. All of Richmond manufacturing has been moved to China since Motive bought them out, so Richmond is no longer what it use to be. I still think US gear is the best out there at this time, other than AAM.