Looks like US gear is still making great gears in Chicago, Illinois. http://www.usgear.com/default.htm "Everything from Production to Heat Treat to Assembly to Quality Control" Now that takes the mystery out of gear shopping.

 

Yep. My Yukons say US Gear.



Look close and you'll see the US Gear logo. I have Yukons in the Dana 44 and they are fine, I have Precision in the FJ-62 and they are fine. I'll put Yukons in the 1981 truck.

 

Yeah you got the good ones there. How do you know you'll get the good ones next time too?

 

I don't know.

 

Yeah that's the mystery about gear shopping at Randy's. With a US Gear distributor you know you'll get US Gears.

 

Resurrection!!
A few months ago my Yukon 4.56 ring gear let go and ripped apart the pinion, carrier and side gears. I got it back to the shop that did the install and he said the bolts just backed out even though there was RED Loctite on them and the locking tab washers. He ended up doing the entire re-gear for free under warranty. My question is: WILL THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?? And what about the gears in the front? The runner is going on a trip to Phoenix from SLC and I don't want any problems. The guy was a jerk so I don't want to go back to him. Also, he replaced all the bearings and set the gears up three times and they still howl/whine a little bit.

 

Anyone have info regarding the recall or changing the design of these gears. Is there anything I can do to check the gears other than drain the oil or pull the third. I'm really concerned about this...it took 12,000 miles to kill the last set.

 

Gears are gears. It's all in the install and setup. I know a guy who can even get the 4WheelParts Genuine Gears to setup nice. Now there's a guy who knows what he's doing.

My orignal 5.29's were never setup right either, I found a different place and the second set I bought, are great. First set took a dump.

It's all in the installer.

 

Ok guys, I now have 5,000 miles on my Yukons. I can rock my driveshaft up and down. I've called the guy and of course "he'll be right with me". I'm thinking of setting these up myself. What do you think has happened? I'm guessing the pre-load was not done properly and the perhaps the bearing have set to where they are supposed to be or the pinion nut backed off a hair. Time to do some research and learn to set up gears.

 

John, how'd you make out? No more crush sleeves....go solid collar. Maybe my website can help help with pics ZUK

 

I removed my drive shaft to see if the pinion nut had moved, it had not, still staked in it's original location. I tried to tighten it by hand with a breaker bar and it would not budge. I then put some air to it with my IR Titanium gun. I ended up tightening the nut an 1/8 of a turn, this was the point where the up/down rocking motion went away. I drove it for a week like this until I could get it onto the shop. The guy simply put on a new nut with loctite and re-staked it. 'Am I coinfident with this "repair"? NO. The shop has been a pain and they've lost a lot of money on me 'cuz I go back for every little thing. The "play" however has not come back. What do YOU think? Excellent site BTW.

 

Got me? Steve-suggestions?

 

I bet it will stay ok until November If you want, at that time, I can give it a health check and add a HD solid collar....shouldn't loosen up then. ZUK

 

Sounds good ZUK, I don't have any vertical movement at the pinion anymore. But I do have some wide backlash I think. with the tranny in Neutral I can twist the drive shaft a 1/16 to 1/8 of a turn from front to back...tooth to tooth. What do you think? Is everyones doing this. I have 135,XXX miles on the truck and 7,XXX on the rear setup.