I never noticed anything. I never noticed a sound or a vibration. everything felt smooth just like when I fisrt bought it.

 

When you get into the higher numerical gear ratios on the Dana 30, the pinion does get a bit smallish, so it would not be outside the realm of possibility that you grenaded your front gears due to the stress... but from what I read on the board, there are myriad guys running 35s on regeard Dana 30s and they seem to get away with it more than they don't.

<shrug>

 

Here is the picture of my ring gear from the front diff.

Ben




http://my.project-jk.com/showphoto.php?photo=48524

 

with 5.38's, the pinion gets real small and a lot of stress will get placed on the one or two teeth that connect with the ring gear. i was running 40's when i upgraded to them and it did last long at all. granted, i do and did play very hard in a very short amount of time. i now have a rear dynatrac prorock 60 front and rear.

 

you know.... after seeing the breaks in this photo, i would contact northridge4x4 and show them as well.

 

Looks from the pic, like the damage is all in one area...... is there any other "out of place looking" wear on any other parts of the gear? could just be that 1 in 10,000 gears is a bad one, and you got it

 

The photos don't show a typical wear pattern from poor adjustment. They look like sudden catastrophic failure.

How does the pinion look? Is it pieces or did the teeth just strip?

 

I have 5.13's ready to go on, and I also have 35's and a Dana 30. Was also under the impression that 5.13 was optimal for 35's and an auto, to get back some performance (I remember seeing some charts some where) and to give the stock tranny a break but....

No? This configuration is a recipe for failure?

Hmmm..... just learning as I go along so if the 30 was upgraded to a 44 it would less likely to explode with 5.13?

 

it is and you should be fine so long as you're not heavy on the skinny pedal and hopping your tires like you shouldn't be doing anyway. looking at the pic again, i see that the damage is localized and without knowing anything more than what i've seen, i'd have to guess that someone had been playing hard. but, being that i don't know more, it really is hard to say for sure.

if you've got the gears, go with them but just be mindful of them.

 

OP... David will need to see the best photos you can get with no glare of the wear pattern on the unhurt teeth and a close-up of the damaged area, of both the ring and pinion gears. What he'll be looking for is the wear marks being in the correct position on the teeth.

If incorrectly setup the wear mark (contact marks) will be deeper than usual because you had the whole force on a smaller area and of course in the wrong place.

The other choices are defective gears or you played to hard, of which you cannot distinguish from the naked eye. Only YOU know that.