4630 pinion

Hi guys, I posted a while back about rearend noise on a 4630 and 2 guys guessed the right answer of a bad pinion bearing on the front side. It was bad enough to where I had to cut it off the pinion to get it out (what a mess). Now I'm in the process of getting it back to together with a used ring and pinion and all new bearings. The question I have is setting the bearings on the pinion. I got the predetermined shims for the ring side set and when I put the bearing on the other side I have about .080 of shimming to get it tight which seems like a lot. Next, that bearing needs to be driven on and how do I know when it's set and I don't have too much preload? My dealer said stack extra shims then is needed and measure end play and subtract what's needed.

There are a couple ways of doing this, and all must be done "before" the gears are loaded onto the shaft,so install the shaft and bearings "first", start out using the same shims that you had to begin with, tighten the front bearing down and feel the rolling drag by twisting the shaft with your hand, at one of the early service school/clinics, they used a string wrapped around the shaft and hooked to a fish scale,,I always thought that was iffy, but it did give a sort of measurement, and I don't remember how many pounds of pull was suggested,,but you should feel a little drag and still be able to turn it easy. the other way is to add shims till you can measure a small amount of end play, like .010 or so then take enough away till it adds up to near .003-.005 or so pre-load,,I do them by feel, firm and and smooth for drag is good, then keep track of the shims you used to achieve this,,put all the extra ones back away from the job..and be sure you follow the picture of the sequence of the gears and spacers,,as you know the 4 snap rings get progressively thicker as you get toward the rear,,"don't" get them mixed up,,sort and place every thing in order and clear the room of anything and anyone that may distract you ;^)...

You must be talking about a quad range pinion? I have a powershift and there is no snap rings. Thanks for the reply and I think I'm going to go with "measuring end play" route. Have you heard of using .080 worth of shims before? The other problem I have is no access to a 3/4" torque wrench to get 400ftlbs of torque. I'm thinking 6ft cheater on my 3/4 breaker bar and locktite the nut.

Yes I was talking about a Quad Range, but the power shift will set up near the same way, just not all the gears and spacers to deal with..

A deal I did for those huge torque jobs was to weld a purchased for the job 3/4 drive socket to a suitable length of pipe. That way there are no broken breaker bars or ratchets that need replacing. Can't offer any experience based advice with this one on the .080 issue.

Guys there is a number stamped on the end of the pinion and on the trans case. you need the code for the model that you are working on as i member you ad the code to the pinion and subtract from the case # that gives you the amount of shims to put in front of the rear brg race this sets the correct depth fore mating to the ring gear after doing this step you go to to the pre load setting for the front brg