Tera D300 4:1 stuff

[Curt Cleavinger <rcleavin@domain.elided>]

Just thought I would pass this along in case anyone is interested:

Tera, who makes the 4:1 gearset for the dana 300, now makes 
a 5 gear set. The original set included 3 gears - the 
intermediate gear and the two input gears (the two smaller gears 
- one on the front shaft, and the one that bolts to the 
transmission output shaft). The new set also replaces the two 
output gears - the new gears are identical to the ones they 
replace, but Tera claims they have a better fit to the new
intermediate gear. The change in the gearset is intended to 
address some failures that have been reported with the orignal 
gearsets (apparently, most of the failures were of the output
gears - the ones not replaced by the 3-gear set). 

When I heard this, I of course had to upgrade my 3 gear kit to 
a 5 gear kit (since I'm nervous about the strength of the kit 
anyway - I've been hearing the reports of failures on the 
offroad digest and other places on the net). So anyway, I got
the gears a couple of weeks ago, disassembled my mostly-rebuilt 
dana 300, and put the new gears in. Then last week, I read on the
web that the new gears are missing an oil groove (there was a 
report of a failure with the new 5 gear set that Tera attributes
to the missing groove). So I called Tera, and they confirmed
the missing oil groove, and told me to make the groove myself 
with a grinder (they claim that it's not critical just how wide 
or how deep the groove is, but it needs to be there). So on 
Saturday I pulled the 300 apart yet again, modified the output 
gears, and put it all back together.
  We'll see if it stays together. It sure makes the Atlas II
look nice (and not that much more expensive, considering 
what I've put into this transfer case). Unfortunately, that 
isn't a viable option with the T19 (a friend of mine tried 
putting the Advanced Adapters Jeep Dana 300 adapter onto his 
T19 so he could use an Atlas, but the adapter is made for a 
Ford T19, and the back of the IH T19 is completely different - 
you can't just drill and tap a few new holes. I wonder if 
there's a way to put the IH input shaft into a Ford T19??). 
So anyway, if you really want lower gears with a T19, it 
looks like Tera is the only option. We'll see just how good
of an option Tera is.

Later,
  Curt

   rcleavin@domain.elided  San Diego, CA
   Binder Bunch: http://www.off-road.com/~jweed/binder.htm
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