I am getting 4.88 and a locker in right now how long do I have to drive it before I can go off roading with it??

 

However long it takes to get from the install shop to the trail of your choice

 

Kinda being serious here I don't really wanna mess them up as its alot of money in them

 

Gear break in is important. Gears are lap finished from the factory but not to the extent of actual driving conditions. When you fist work in a new set of gears you are going to work in the driving faces, removing any high spots not taken out by the lapping process. This WILL generate heat, and fine metal shavings. Also new gears come with a phosphorus coating (preservative for shelf life) that will burn off in break in. Both the metal and phosphorus will flush into the oil, and should be changed before hard use.

Common practice:
15-20 light miles followed by an hour of cooling, then a total of 500 miles with light driving no more than 60 mph (no towing, no wheeling, no hard accel). Change the oil then you're good to go.

 

I believe the above poster nailed it, a few easy miles woth cool down then 500 or so easy miles and you should be good to go. I often wonder why no real break in needed from the factory.

 

There you go! How many "break in" their gears from the factory? How many buy a new vehicle and take a cross country trip? If the gears are set up right, drive it like you stole it! We do several sets of gears a week, along with lockers, axles, and other diff work. We never tell the customer any break in rules.

 

Yeh. I say drive it!!! The gears don't know if you are in the dirt or on the pavement. Haha. I would think that driving slowly off road would actually be better than highway driving. If the gears are installed correctly you should be fine just driving it as you normally would. If you are getting excess metal shavings and need to change the gear oil, they were installed incorrectly and no about of babying them is gonna save them anyway. So damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

Sent from the fast lane while driving one handed.

 

Excess metal shavings, sure, but if you take a set of freshly installed gears and run them for 500 miles, when you remove the drain plug you will have quite a bit of metal fuzz on the magnet from burnishing the gears. Change the oil and run another 500 and check the magnet again, I guarantee there will be a lot less metal fuzz...

 

I'm old school, and break my gears in--never had any issues.

Drove the vehicle for about 20 miles, and took it easy, w/ no hard acceleration.

Let the axle cool completely.

Did this a couple of times.

Operate the vehicle normally for the next 500 hundred miles, and tried to vary my speed with no towing.

Changed diff fluid after 500 miles.

 

A few of them basically hit on the nose. 500 lite miles then change it