Extremely Cheap! 5.29 gears. Motive gears OK?

Haha well I will say I wasn’t ready for it to be so aggressive. I was coming out of the turn with some throttle and with the roads a little wet she started to come around.

 

That's what I've been saying. You need to get used to the preload and how it will respond to your throttle input.

 

Yes it definitely changes the way you need to drive when coming out of a turn. I’ve never had a rwd vehicle with a lsd. Only on awd and fwd.

 

I’m excited to see the difference between the Speedmaster and the auburn. Wonder how much more aggressive the Speedmaster will be. My ‘21 is still stock open and it’s driving me bonkers driving around in the snow and ice doing the one wheel peel at every stop sign. Doesn’t help that the bed is completely empty. Might as well toss a grip pro in that one so I can compare all three setups!

 

I’ll be able to test that out Monday when we get some snow here. Been a weird winter for us in Maine.

 

Full spool should be fun lol

 

Lots of fun full spooling it!

 

Bearings finally showed up yesterday. We were able to setup the factory gears with the new Speedmaster. Owing to reusing the factory gears, we were able to reuse the factory shims all around! So machining tolerances on the Speedmaster look to be pretty good (same with the Auburn it replaced). We marked the pattern, for which my buddy was kind enough to give me a little education.

Compared to what you would find in a manual, the pattern looked a little narrow to me, so I asked him about it. He noted that because the gears are used gears, they are going to mark differently than a new set. The wear is concentrated more on the middle of the tooth (an indication that he set them up correctly 140k miles ago as well!) and actually forms a little bit of a scallop or rut on the teeth - a virtually microscopic rut that you can see with your marking compound but can't feel with your fingernail or hands. This leads to a smaller wear pattern when setting up the gears again.

The important part is WHERE the pattern in marking - middle of the tooth is perfect, depth wise (or laterally oriented with the axle shafts, if that makes sense). Due to the way the gears mesh and basically roll - being hypoid gears and not straight cut gears - the pattern will roll off the outside edge of the tooth, but shouldn't mark too far inside the tooth (toward the center of the carrier). I checked the marking on the pinion gear and it had polished itself on the center of the teeth, but you could see unpolished material on the other edges of the tooth, indicating a good centering and alignment with the ring.

Hopefully that's helpful if you need to setup your gears after initial break-in as the pattern can change a little bit from what you'd see with brand new gears.

Oh, and he harped about Maintenance! Maintenance! Maintenance! He was truly impressed with the condition of the gears and differential case, attributing it 100% to me changing the oil often. So pat on the back for me

 

Shout out to Bob at New England Gear Polishing. They did an awesome job with a day turn around. I had a few credits on Amazon so went ahead and picked up another rear set and had them sent to NEGP. Will send out my used gears that are whining at 60mph to get them polished. Will get em swapped out soon.

 

First drive with the Speedmaster: I love it. It feels just like a stock open diff when cruising around making slow turns. Get on it a little and you can feel it looking for traction. Very few miles so far and I haven’t really gotten on it yet, but I notice the difference already.

The Aurburn behaved the same way on power, but slow speed turns were a little clunky and felt like you had a brake dragging just a little bit. The Auburn was great, with a few minor compromises. The Speedmaster feels much smoother. Im excited to see how it behaves in various situations.

 

Finally called Outlaw Off-road in Nashville. I asked for an install quote for my ‘21 SR5 with me supplying front and rear gears and master kits as well as the Speedmaster limited slip. They said they’d send me an email and I’ll need to confirm the p/n’s of what I bought to make sure I got the right stuff, and they’ll reply with the labor quote.

I also asked if they knew anyone locally who would polish the gears. They said with their install, it’s not needed, since they break them in with 3 or 4 drives. Included in the install is me bringing it back after 500 miles for them to check lashing and swap gear oil.

Waiting on that email…

 

Do they have to pull both diffs out to check the lashing?

 

I’ll have to ask once I hear back from them

 

Same question came up as soon as I read that.
My money says they’ll grab the pinion and wiggle it.

 

Are you getting loud clunks from diff not whine? No backlash can cause whine and excessive youll hear the clunk. To an extent you can grab the yoke but if it's clunking it should be pulled. Bearings and gears inspected and backlash checked with a dial micrometer.

 

I’m not getting any noise, I haven’t put in the gears yet. I was initially asking @Terndrerrr about his installers process.

 

Got my estimate from Outlaw Nashville.

Seems high to me. Gonna shop around.

This is to install front and rear Motive gears with the Yukon install kits and speedmaster limited slip in the rear—all customer supplied.

 

That's just labor? I paid right around $2k even for labor up here in MA. I supplied the gears and install kits.

 

Yep. That line “total fees” is other unspecified stuff, probably mostly gear oil

The discount is for the free 500-mile gear inspection and refill of gear oil.

 

Do they pull the rear diff to inspect gears?

 

Does seem high for just labor and misc parts. But maybe not if they are quoting pulling the diffs out again to check everything over.

 

The labor quote is for 18 hours of labor @ $149/hr.

And they said the 500-mile check up includes:
• drain of differentials
• remeasure of backlash
• refill of differentials

That doesn’t really specify if they pull the rear diff, though.

Also included in the quote was another approve or decline job for an 8” readylift (lol) @ $5700 plus tax and a cab mount relocation @ $1100.

 

Give True Blue Truck in Murfreesboro a call. They did gears on my AEV PXL and were great to deal with. Im waiting on a quote for gears on my new to me LSK long travel tundra. Im in Franklin area and called around to all the local diff/transmission shops, every one of them suggested True Blue so that's where I went. Owner drives a heavily modified Lexus GX

 

My gear install keeps getting pushed back, hopefully will be dropping off the weekend of 2/29. I was worried about my polished gears sitting around getting rusty. I had them stored in a cold detached garage so was hoping the humidity was low enough it wouldn’t matter. I pulled them out and checked and they’re still looking shiny luckily. I coated them with some gun oil for the time being. I’m guessing if it were summer time it could have been a problem. Waiting is hard!

 

2028?!? JK, hopefully it doesn't keep getting pushed back

 

That's funny! I get it, life and all, priorities, peer pressure, etc. etc. etc. Still funny.

 

Everyone talking about their mad 5.29 power in other threads just has me excited.

 

Got another quote from a shop in the Nashville area. This one is $3500 after tax.

That’s just labor and gear oil.

This seems nuts to me.

 

Man...a nice work shop would be sweet!

 

Has anyone gone through the process of swapping both front and rear diff assemblies with new ones from ECGS with gears and/or lockers already installed?

Installers near me are either extremely expensive, have no clue what they are doing, or a mixture of both lol

The ECGS 9" front clam shell diff for $2500 with new seals, bearings, gears of whatever ratio wanted, and an E-locker seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Not sure how much a rear end would be I couldn't imagine it being much more with just a Grip Pro and gears.