Ring and pinion break in

[REVELC]

East Coast Gear Supply recommends heat cycling my new gears for 20 miles at a time for 100 miles. And no towing or hard acceleration for 500 miles.

Some old school guys have told me drive it like I usually would. Change oil after 1,000 miles and that's it.

What have y'all done with your shiny new gear sets?

 

[cashmoney]

I've heard anywhere between 200-500 miles easy driving, change oil, 1000 miles easy driving, change oil, have fun. With that said, why go against what your gear supplier says? It might be inconvenient but the secret to a long, quiet life is proper break in.

 

[Brveagle]

I don't have any experience with gear sets but 5x 20 mile drives is hardly what i would call an inconvienance. Just break it in like they advise and never look back.

 

[REVELC]

Well I have moved 250 miles away and it broke down back home. I'm picking it up this weekend and driving it back.

 

[csp]

Think about the millions of brand new vehicles purchased every year that don't get a gear break in like ECGS recommends. Is it a good idea? In theory sure. The risk of having a quality gearset go bad or become noisy is almost immeasurably low, however.

The only time I see it being an issue is with towing heavy loads (nothing a 4Runner would be capable of towing). In that case a thousand miles of not towing is a good idea.

 

[MandAtaco]

My guy said to not tow or be hard on em for the first 500 miles. After that change the oil and you should be good.

 

[animator]

When I got my gears and lockers done, the recommendation for break in was to just drive it a bit. The next day I took the truck to Katemcy for a long weekend of wheeling.

Nothing exploded, and after 6 year or so, they are just as fine as they were the day they were installed.

 

[REVELC]

The heat from the surfaces mating together and wearing irregularities down generates a lot of heat.

If you don't allow them to heat cycle properly it can cause serious damage.

I changed the oil at 600 miles and it was BLACK and burned already. There weren't any shavings but it showed me how hot the gears got during break in.

I heat cycled the gears 4 times for 25 miles. Then drove 250 miles to Austin. I kept the speed 5 under and fluctuated it. Turned out great.

The magnetic plugs looked good with no fuzzy stuff.

 

[BRossman]

You don't need to break in a gear set. Cmon people.

 

[02SE]

Actually, it is a good idea to take it easy on a new gear set for a little while. Just normal driving with no extreme loads will usually do the job.

But if you don't believe some guy you don't know on the Internet, listen to the businesses that sell and set-up gear sets for a living.

 

[jeremyc74]

The heat from the surfaces mating together and wearing irregularities down generates a lot of heat.

If you don't allow them to heat cycle properly it can cause serious damage.

No, it won't. No one heat cycles the drivetrain of new vehicles when they buy them, and there are MILLIONS of them on the road that last a long time. If the clearances are set right at installation you're not going to have any problems.

I wouldn't tow with a brand new set of gears in, but other than that just drive it like you're breaking in a new vehicle (basically don't beat on it) and they're going to be fine.

 

[REVELC]

No, it won't. No one heat cycles the drivetrain of new vehicles when they buy them, and there are MILLIONS of them on the road that last a long time. If the clearances are set right at installation you're not going to have any problems.

I wouldn't tow with a brand new set of gears in, but other than that just drive it like you're breaking in a new vehicle (basically don't beat on it) and they're going to be fine.

Aren't gears lapped at the factory?

Because I watched the oil come out BLACK. Which means it generated a lot of heat and broke the oil down. I'm sure it wouldn't have lubricated the gears properly given enough time.

Even the factory reccomends not towing with your vehicle for the first 500 miles.

 

[jeremyc74]

Aren't gears lapped at the factory?

Because I watched the oil come out BLACK. Which means it generated a lot of heat and broke the oil down. I'm sure it wouldn't have lubricated the gears properly given enough time.

Even the factory reccomends not towing with your vehicle for the first 500 miles.

Nope. They're hobbed, shaped, installed, and sold. Keep in mind that a typical assembly line produces a car every 40-60 seconds. There's no time for break in. I always laugh when I see people getting all sensitive about how a new vehicle is being driven. If you see the way they're treated for the first 3 minutes of their life you wouldn't worry about it. :faint2:

 

[REVELC]

Nope. They're hobbed, shaped, installed, and sold. Keep in mind that a typical assembly line produces a car every 40-60 seconds. There's no time for break in. I always laugh when I see people getting all sensitive about how a new vehicle is being driven. If you see the way they're treated for the first 3 minutes of their life you wouldn't worry about it. :faint2:

OK.

But you still haven't acknowledged anything said about the oil breaking down due to the heat.

You don't replace your factory diff fluid at 500 miles. And it certainly doesn't come out looking black. It's still a pearly gold with that low tide smell.

 

[jeremyc74]

OK.

But you still haven't acknowledged anything said about the oil breaking down due to the heat.

You don't replace your factory diff fluid at 500 miles. And it certainly doesn't come out looking black. It's still a pearly gold with that low tide smell.

No, you don't replace it because you don't need to. I seriously doubt yours was broken down due to heat either. You can't tell that by looking at it.

If you're still under the assumption that the auto plants are doing something differently I can assure you they're not. I work in automotive manufacturing, and have on and off for almost 20 years. I've worked with gear Hobbs and shapers, and I've worked in assembly plants where the stuff goes together. We did the differential assembly equipment for the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, and even those don't get broken in at the factory. With a 45 second cycle time you get do a spin test and measure the friction, and send it on down the line. The cost alone of dumping break in fluid for every car leaving an auto plant would be obscene.

Look, there's nothing wrong with taking it easy on new parts for a couple of hundred miles, but the notion that they're going to break if you don't is just completely false. It's not going to happen if they're installed properly.

 

[KidVermicious]

East Coast Gear Supply recommends heat cycling my new gears for 20 miles at a time for 100 miles. And no towing or hard acceleration for 500 miles.

Some old school guys have told me drive it like I usually would. Change oil after 1,000 miles and that's it.

What have y'all done with your shiny new gear sets?

I've had to regear a couple times, and I've always asked the guy who set them up to tell me how to break them on. Once I got a very specific set of instructions similar to what you got from ECGS. Once it was a vague "stay off the highway for a day". And once it was a blank stare. From this I conclude two things - 1) that the best thing to do is exactly what the guy who sets them up tells you to do, so that if something goes wrong he can't blame it on you, and 2) it probably doesn't matter very damned much anyway.

 

[the great him]

wow the people in this thread saying no need just drive it... lol yeah ok, glad im never buying a car for any of you....


YOU SHOULD DO A BREAK-IN ON NEW GEARS! like the OP stated, if you just drive it you will burn the oil up in them. its why when you buy a new vehcile the deal should tell you to bring it in in 1000 miles and let them do a service on it, they should drain and fill the diffs/transaxle, and oil at the minimum. most people who buy new cars baby them for the first couple of months anyways as its new and special to them. there are a lot of things going on in a differential, you have bearings that can be affected by both heat and particles as well as seals...

 

[jeremyc74]

wow the people in this thread saying no need just drive it... lol yeah ok, glad im never buying a car for any of you....


YOU SHOULD DO A BREAK-IN ON NEW GEARS! like the OP stated, if you just drive it you will burn the oil up in them. its why when you buy a new vehcile the deal should tell you to bring it in in 1000 miles and let them do a service on it, they should drain and fill the diffs/transaxle, and oil at the minimum. most people who buy new cars baby them for the first couple of months anyways as its new and special to them. there are a lot of things going on in a differential, you have bearings that can be affected by both heat and particles as well as seals...

Who knows more about this....a gear shop, or the engineers who design the driveline in the first place. NO ONE recommends changing the driveline fluids after break in, with the exception of a few exotics. And the idea that most people are babying a new car for the first couple of months....just crazy. They roll off the lot and do their normal commutes.

 

[the great him]

F it.... just drag race that chit... youre good bro!

 

[jeremyc74]

F it.... just drag race that chit... youre good bro!

Lots of high performance cars roll off the line and hit a chassis dyno as soon as they're started, with zero miles or break in. How many Vipers do you see blowing the gears out?