Setting up my dana 30

steady.foot

steady.foot

New member
I'm in the process of installing 4.88 gears in place of the 4.11 gears in my dana 30HP. I bought the axle complete a few years ago and installed in the front of my YJ and never had any issues with it. Earlier this week I tore it down and found a few badly chipped teeth on the pinion. No damage to the ring gear. Looks like it wasn't set deep enough even tho all the shims were on the gear side of the carrier. As i was setting it up i also had to put all the shims on the gear side and the pinion is set far enough in so the oil slinger is almost hitting the ring gear and tooth pattern is still on the outside corner of the ring gear and nowhere near deep enough. I have no way of telling if it has ever been torn apart before. Is it possable that the wrong carrier was installed? Can the wrong carrier even be made to work with the lower gears? How much diference is there between a carrier for low gears and a carrier for high gears? I have a carrier out of a low pinion dana 30 and with my limited measuring equipement it shows about .005 difference in surface hight setting on end. Does anybody know how much difference there is suposed to be between the two?. Is it possible that the third member could have been milled wrong at the factory? Has anybody else ever run into this problem? Sorry no pics. Haven't been able to get the easy share program to work since the computer crashed last summer. Sometimes i have a hard time explaining things, so if i missed some information, please ask. I have done a few gear changes in the past and never come across this problem.
!988 YJ. I believe the axle is out of a 92 YJ. But not sure.
 

Ideally you should run some gear print paint on there and show us the contact pattern. with out seeing that and based soley on how I am interpreting your issue, sounds like your pinion depth was too deep. Since the D30 uses a crush sleeve it was probably over torqued. This would probably have been evident when you checked the backlash.

could it be the wrong carrier, doubt it. not sure what other carrier would just accept D30 gears, bearings, and fit perfectly into the carrier.
 
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Be sure u had 4.11. If u had 3.73. I believe 4.88 use a diff carrier. Or possibly someone installed the gears on the wrong carrier to begin with
 
jester32 Yes i'm sure that it was 4.11 gears but they weren't set up right thats why i was wondering if it might have been installed previosly with the wrong carrier. I'm trying to get the measurements or a number or symbol from the carrier to see which one it is for sure. I know how to set up a ring and pinion. I just can't figure why this one won't set up right.
jps4jeep The dana 30 does not have a crush sleeve. It's set up with shims inboard of the outer pinion bearing to set the preload and i have set all torques to dana specs. I did use gear paint. Thats how i know that it's not right. Pictures are not an option right now. There are two factory carriers that fit a dana 30 and i'm trying to find out for sure which one i have.
 
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Any part number. I work for Chrysler do I can look up the parts
 
I misunderstood about the "different carrier", I was thinking D27 carrier in a D30.

The two D30 carriers are nearly identical, the ring flange height is different by about 1/4" IIRC. If you try to put a 4.10 gear set onto a 3.73 and lower carrier, I believe the ring and pinion won't even contact each other due to the small sized pinion. the 4.10 and up carrier moves the ring gear towards the pinion about 1/4" or so to allow for gear engagement.

here is an example of pinion size, D30 3.07 left versus D30 4.56 right
307456352-1.jpg


Now that I am thinking, do they make a thin cut or thick cut gear set for D30... I am thinking so, but wondering if you have thin cut gear set.
 
As far as I know nobody makes "thick" gears for the D30. The D30 high pinion case break is between 3.54/3.73. steady.foot the way you measured the case is not correct. The gear mount surface to the bearing shoulder is what you want to measure. I agree the difference between the two cases is in the .200-.250 range. If you had the wrong carrier than yes all the shims would need to the gear side to try to get proper engagement but I doubt it would work. Are the 4.88 gears you have for a high pinion D30? Are they new or used? And if you have a mis matched set of gears like Johnny pictured you will really be messed up.
 
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Yes the gears are new matched set and for the high pinion. I have all the shims on the ring gear side so it's pushed as close to the pinion as possible. The teeth do mesh but nowhere near enough. The .200-.250 offset would make a big diference.
The more i surf the internet, the more i think that i have the wrong carrier but want to make sure before i put out another $100 or so for another one.
I've done a lot of work on the jeep this winter and funds are getting thin.
 
You should be able to get an open carrier for a D30 for less than $100. Unless of course you buy it new.
 

jester32
I've found some numbers and i hope you can figure which ones to use.
On a small flat surface on the oposite side as the ring gear the number 4074 is cast into the carrier. Inside the carrier near where the spider gears go there is a number 6. Between the webbs on the ring gear side there is a triangle with what looks like an "I" inside it. Between another set of webbs is 14. Between other webbs and each number between there own webbs is 3 2 9 3 2. All numbers are cast into the carrier not stamped except maybe the 6. Because of the location i can't see it very well with the lunch box locker installed. If it's inportant, I'll take it out to get a better look at it. Damn, i wish i could get my kodak easyshare program to work. It would make it so much easier to just show a picture.

Ggg
It took me a little while to figure out why it made a difference to where to measure it. I get it now and you are right. As far as buying a used one, I'm a little leary. The one i have was supposed to be the right one. If i could get some measurements then i would be more at ease about it. If jester has any luck with the numbers that i gave, then maybe that would give me a clue and start haunting the salvage yards. Found a new one on ebay for about $65. Maybe thats the one i'll get.
 
I have the disconnect axle and i'm not posative of the year. My jeep is an 88 YJ but i bought the axle separate and i think it's a 92 but not sure. I bought it because it had the 4.11 gears all installed and i just put the whole axle assembly under the my YJ.
 

Here are the spicer casting numbers. Non disco case 4.10 up is 706008x
3.55 down is 706007x
Disco case 3.55 down is 706933x
4.10 up is 706934x

Right from spicer. They said they may be hard to rear but should be cast in to the carrier
 
Jobber has a 20026 number for the 3.73 up. When I say 4.10 they are the same p/n as 3.73. They just read it off as 4.10 off there sheet
 
Ok jester, Thanks for reserching this for me. I don't have any numbers close to what you have found unless there under the ring gear or inside the case. I guess tomorows job is to tear it down and look it over real close. I have it out of the third member now but it still has the ring gear on it and the locker in it.
 

I was talking to the guy at spicer and he said there's a few jobber ones out there that have no or little markings on them. He said they don't even measure out right at times. For giggles I priced out a new one and it was 56.98 Canadian my cost. There's a few online distributors that were close to that I think "just differentials" was one of them. Just incase you need one they can be had for cheap.
 
Thanks jester. Even tho we haven't proved which carrier i have, I'm preety sure it's the wrong one. I can't figure what else it might be. I'll check out the distributor that you mentioned. If i can get one that cheap, it won't hurt the wallet as much.
 

I got the new carrier today and am still confused. The web site that i posted has a .610 difference between the two and all over the web it's assumed that there's about 1/4 inch difference. The actual difference between the two that i have is about 1/8 inch. I'm going to put it together tomorow and see what happens. Wish me luck.
 
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