5.13's Installed Today... with minor setback
 

Had my 5.13's installed today....woohoo!!! finally after my Jeep was only stock for about 500 miles or so, 4000 miles later it feels great to drive again... I can actually get on the go pedal... and it goes :D Night and day difference.... running about 70 in overdrive in turning about 2200 - 2300 rpms....

Now the bad news.. apparently DC changed the design on the rear ring gear... I guess the early models had 7/16" ring gear bolts, and the later models have a 1/2" ring gear bolt.. So Superior Axle and Gear has all there rear ring gears set up for 7/16" bolts. But they are working on getting spacers out soon to correct the problem. My Installer ended up making some so I wouldn't have to wait a week to get my Jeep back on the road.

So for those of you that are having your gears changed out, beware of this problem before hand so you don't run into the same problem I did.

This was not Superiors fault by any means because they did not know about this util after the gears were shipped, but are working hard to get it corrected.
I want to thank Nick at Superior for explaining what happened and their prompt atttempt to get the spacers out as quickly as possible.

Are the new gears going to be shipped so that they will fit with both setups for those of us that don't know what we have?

I just love it when a manufacturer makes a change like this right in the middle of a model year. :naw: :naw:

Spacers? As in maybe sleeves that fit inside the ring gear bolt holes so the 7/16" bolts fit tight? Is this really a mechanically sound way to fix a problem like that?

Is there any way of us knowing what we have?

Hmmm, Puddlz just got his Rubicon Unlimited on Feb 17th, which was 5 days after I got mine. Jeff got his on Jan 10th. I wonder if Mel ran into the same issue with Puddlz gear install, and what did he do to get around it if he did?

I was a little tired when I posted last night and I should have phrased it better, it is a sleeve that will slide into bolt holes into the case that will not allow the bolt to move inside the hole. On DC 's part, this is actually a stronger design with the 1/2" bolts but we had to revert to going back to the 7/16" because that is what the new ring gear was tapped for.

http://my.project-jk.com/data/500/me...4_Rubicon1.JPG

this is how many many many gears were done on TJ rubicons when retaining the stock carrier because it was the same difference. Never had any problems.

Yes. I have talked to Superior about this and was told that sleeves would be included with all their R&P's to accomodate both bolt sizes.

Yes. As mentioned, this was done before with the TJ Rubicon and shouldn't be a problem.