Gary Ramadei and Others: Gear Mesh Pattern

[Joe C.]

Is it possible to have the drive gear showing evidence of heat with scoring of the teeth, and the driven gear to show little to no damage.
I refer to a manual transmission using ATF as the fluid. The mating gears are the input gear and the counter shaft (cluster) driven gear.

[Gary R.]

Re: Gary Ramadei and Others: Gear Mesh Pattern

Hi Joe,
Typically where heat friction develops between 2 gears it is apparent on both. Not knowing the circumstances, is it possible one part could have been replaced prior?

I have seen plenty of steering gears pitting and scored, not from heat but corrosion from sitting for long periods in acidic grease or oil.

[Joe C.]

Re: Gary Ramadei and Others: Gear Mesh Pattern

I am concerned that the input shaft/gear, which is no longer available and was produced in very limited numbers, was pirated by a repair shop. Looking for evidence as to whether or not that happened.

[Gary R.]

Re: Gary Ramadei and Others: Gear Mesh Pattern

Joe
I kind of suspected something like that. I had something similar happen to me with my son's 75 L82 engine. The automotive machine shop stole the pink rods and forged pistons from us. I had pictures of the parts prior to going to the shop and they sure weren't the same when we picked up the parts afterwards. A long story( 2 years) is he settled up the night before our trial date. Good luck.

[Joe C.]

Re: Gary Ramadei and Others: Gear Mesh Pattern

I removed the front cover from the RS600 transmission after I brought it home from the shop where the 3-4 fork was replaced. The input shaft/gear looks much better than was shown to me in pictures that the technician took. It shows evidence of heat, although the mating gear on the counter shaft does not show as much heat discoloration, so there may not have been so much monkey business as much as over conservatism on the part of the technician.

Gary: The mesh patterns on a hypoid gearset which are familiar to you are quite different from those of a helical gearset linking parallel shafts. If you have knowledge of transmission gears and their mesh patterns, then I'll post photos of the input gear and the driven gear on the cluster shaft. I don't understand why the input gear is overheating, except that I do wind my engine to almost 8000 RPM on occasion. It's possible that the ATF lubricant is not as effective as old fashioned gear lube at such high input gear RPMs.