Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

Well...in addition to Motive gear, you will have to ask a lot of other companies to do so. The company that makes the gears for motive also a manufacturer for gears used in helicopter gear boxes built in the USA and they also make gears for the automotive OEM's.
If you have quality escapements in the automotive and aerospace industries that use AS9100 quality specs, you will have them too in aftermarket products.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

Started doing this a couple of years ago and have good success. Use the old shims and check the pattern and they are usual right on. The only one that I ran across was in a Jeep that a shop tried to setup....it was a mess. Didn't have the old shims took awhile to figure that one.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

Good info, Tod - I wish I had heard of them before I did my 12-bolt. What about their "Smart Sleeve?" They say duty cycle is better than a spacer and shims. http://www.ratechmfg.com/smart%20sleeve.htm
That would eliminate the idea of honing a bearing.
As a side note, I bought used gears when I was putting the car together. When I went to press the pinion bearing on, it just slid over by hand. Turns out the previous owner's setup guy takes a little off all his pinions to make setup easier. A few people predicted disaster at the time, but after 60 or so runs this year the oil came out clean and the pattern looks great.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

Richmond stuff has been questionable for a number of years. The Motive, Italian stuff, on the other hand, has been good. Nice finish, easy to set up, nice looking pattern. I was glad to hear Motive bought Richmond. According to their website, Motive is a division of Midwest Truck and Auto Parts in Chicago. Who knows if it's American owned. The no name Chinese stuff is to be avoided.

I have set up tools, but rarely use them. They would get it close, but I found I always had to fudge it one way or the other a little bit. 1 or 2 thou makes a difference in the pattern. Typically, I just start with what came out of the old set-up and work from there. If I don't have that, I start with a typical shim for that rear. On a 12 bolt, it would be a .025. I like to use the ones under the bearing race or I will polish the pinion to get a semi-light press fit on the bearing so that it comes off with no damage. I set up according to the pattern. That's the final determining factor anyway. Randy's has a nice selection of tools and quality parts.

ETA...On anything other than a normal street car, it gets an adjustable solid spacer kit for pinion preload.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

It's a given that most here already know how to pattern a gear. The issue is spec's provided by a manufacturer that are nearly a 1/4" off. Imagine if a camshaft or another critical part was shipped with similar wacked spec's...just not acceptable by today's standards.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

I agree, the numbers should be right since they are based off of being run on a machine. I was just stating that I rarely pay attention to those numbers and would not return a gear set for that reason. If they are obviously machined wrong, then they would go back.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

could the number posted on the pinion be in milimeters? Just a thought. Dyno

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

We pretty much use the smart sleeve and pitch the regular crush sleeves or shim and spacers in most applications. MUCH easier to set preload than the old style crush sleeve.

Alot of their stuff is made there in cincy and pricing is good.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

I may try the "Smart Sleeve" of Ratech's on the next gearset...supposedly more stable with less than half of the normal torque values.

Re: Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...
 

Someone mentioned used gears, just a tip which IMO is important. Before I remove a good uses set, I mark the gear teeth to the pinion teeth so when I install it, it will ride/mesh the same way. Some people say no big deal, but I have never had a problem doing this