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The greatest damage to any
new ring & pinion gearset usually occurs during the first thousand miles. During this
time, the new gears are bedding-in which generates quite a
bit of heat and if driven hard
you will raise this temperature even further and may cause
irreversible damage to the gears. This is because
the surface finish of the new gears is not perfectly
matched and hasn’t had enough run-time to allow the
machine surface finish to wear itself to its final match.
The ring & pinion gears are now lapped in at the factory and
while this is a recent improvement they still must have
sufficient run-time to allow the surface finish to
properly develop.
Over the course of several thousand miles the gears will
bed-in and polish themselves to where they are very smooth
and shiny. This improved MSF (machine surface
finish) reduces the heat that is generated and increases
the overall durability of the gearset. It is wise to let
the transfer case ring & pinion gears bed-in before
pushing them to their material limits. This process takes
about 8000 miles before the ring & pinion have fully
bedded in.
Recommend procedure for breaking-in your
new ring & pinion:
Follow the transfer case
filling instructions provide on the FAQ section of this
site. Vehicle speeds should stay below 60 mph for the first 100
miles. Drive the vehicle 10 miles, stop and let cool for
half and hour. Repeat this process at least 3 times.
Do not abuse or dump the clutch or do any hard
acceleration, let the ring & pinion bed-in gently to avoid
overheating. If you take it easy on a new ring & pinion and
perform regular oil changes it will last much longer. Aggressive high rpm clutch dumps can fatigue parts and may
lead to eventual failures.
Change
the transfer case oil every 5000 miles. Vehicles that are
being road raced require race car maintenance and all
drivetrain oils should be inspected after each race and
changed if the oil is dark or stinky. Road racing
applications may add an additional 1/2 pint of oil to the
transfer case for added lubrication and cooling. New or
recently rebuilt transfer cases should have the oil
changed after the initial first 500 and again after 1000
miles.
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