Here's my entire life story it seems, trials and tribulations of doing a gear swap on my '03 1500 9.25 rear axle.

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/3rd-gen...-progress.html

So I've been quiet for a while, getting some mileage on it and thought I'd post an update and hopefully soon, work on a how to on this specific rear and go over specific tricks I've learned down the road.

Since putting it together the last time, set it to .032" shim on the pinion and 0.006" backlash. I get noise during cruise or maintaining speed from 45-55 MPH. I'm now getting a little noise on decel in that range, but still hard pressed to hear anything on accel.

Measuring temps on the hump with an ir thermometer, now it's running max 140*F that I've seen after driving it 20 miles on the highway at 60-70MPH.

So, I'm thinking that I would crack it open, clean it up, change fluid, check backlash and pinion preload and see if maybe it fell below spec to maybe explain why i'm getting a little more noise now then it was 250 miles ago or maybe my backlash is off???

markings on the ring gear look like 0.006 but a lot of people are saying to set it between 0.008 and 0.012 ... I tried 0.010 but with bad pinion bearings at the time, hard to say if results from that test should even be valid. Thinking trying 0.008 but am now kind of getting tired of trying things ... lol ... Anybody have any other ideas? Or just check things out and leave the crap the way it is and ride?

 

I do notice, noise gets more pronounced as it warms up which tells me, heat expands, possibly decreasing backlash (making things tighter) and thus could be resulting in more pronounced noise. This noise is only when I'm cruising between 45-55. I don't notice decel noise increasing nor do I ever hear accel noise at all.

I'm going to check pinion preload, gear mesh and go from there. If what I've been reading around is correct, I should be seeing the coast side contact towards the heel of the ring gear.

I'll just keep you all posted on what I find. I think i've got this thing figured out, just need another go in and triple check everything.

 

I'll say one thing, you are about the most persistent son of a bi*ch I've seen. Keep at it, looks like you are close...

 

Yep. I admire your patience!!!

 

I feel it, too. I am very close. My gut's telling me to widen backlash a tad and double check that pinion preload.

 

Oh and thanks for the compliments guys. I HAVE to be persistent. I haven't been able to find anybody around here reliable enough to trust with gear installs. If anybody knows Miami, all most anybody knows how to do around here is lay tile. That and I've put too much into this to just hand it off to someone else now. Gotta see it through!

 

I've learned a heck of a lot from reading your posts areinike.

I have all the bits and pieces to upgrade my 03 1500 4x4 ?hemi over here in the UK. From 3:55's on 20's with Cooper LTZ's 275x60x20 up to 4:56.
I already have a DTT installed, but these gears should really wake my truck up!

I don't think I could do this on my own......specialist equipment needed etc and trying to find an installer over here will be a task.

Ah well.......it must be done lol.

Keep posting up info bro. It's well worth the read and I certainly appeciate your time and effort in doing it.

Best of luck and regards.

Al.

 

That was the response I got from Motive. I guess I am off. Do I accommodate for heat or wear ... ? Heat decreases backlash, wear increases ... hmmm ... gear patterns will tell.

 

I don't think you need to worry about heat or wear you don't have a whole lot of miles on them yet, right? If it was a used set w/ like 10k miles or more on them I've read you're supposed to go by the pattern on the coast side instead of drive side. With all that being said I don't think you're gonna get them any quieter w/o buying a new set of gears, but really for you that's not that bad since you can do the install yourself now. Good luck.

 

Hey, Chambers! yeah I don't think I can get the noise out, but quieter, yes. I can tell something is shifting back there, whether it be the pinion or carrier or both. It's an easy check regardless. Peace of mind.