Heavy wear on pinion gears

[Streamus]

Hi there

After rebuilding my LST to fix another problem, I noticed a fine layer of silver dust all over the right side of my car, whitch lead my to find very heavy wear on both my pinion gears. The wear was caused in only 15minutes of (slow) test running, in a pretty clean environment.

So it seems that during the rebuild, I have done something wrong. The picture below shows the way the pinion and spur gears are posisioned. Everything was running very smooth and there was no noticable friction between spur and pinion gears before I started driving.

Is this a frequent problem or is it just me?
And are there suggestions for a solution?

Tnx!

 

[alpinehyperlite]

Looks like they are not meshed correctly...... too loose.

 

[crashhard23]

yea the mesh is way too close hope this helps

 

[Streamus]

Ok, thanks for the reply's.

To be sure (because I don't know exactly what you mean by 'mesh'): I have to leave a bit more space between pinion and spur gears?

I hope it helps. My next set will be the TiNi one's and I don't want to ruin these.

 

[alpinehyperlite]

use a piece of paper to pass between them, if it crinkles alot, but doesn't bind, you are good.

 

[Streamus]

use a piece of paper to pass between them, if it crinkles alot, but doesn't bind, you are good.

Splendid tip! Tnx a lot.

(Topic can be closed)

 

[beason]

you will also see this if you run a hardened spur and a non hardend clutch bell (pinion) you need to make sure they are both she same or one is plastic.

as alpine sayed, smash the paper in there and tighten up the motor, then roll the paper out.

 

[olds97_lss]

To me, your mesh doesn't look that bad. The LST doesn't let you set mesh really good due to the two speed gears. At least not on mine. Mine looks similar to yours, but I usually run them a bit tighter. Considering your running plastic spurs, if your mesh was bad, your spurs would get damaged way before the steel pinions would.

Any idea what pinions those were? Where they losi or aftermarket?

If you go with the TiNi ones and the same brand of pinions, the pinions aren't going to last very long at all. Losi TiNi spurs will withstand just about anything short of a blowtorch.

Here's a shot of mine for your reference:

I'm running RC Monster +3 pinions on mine and they look as good now as they did when I installed them last year. I've run probably over a gallon on them..

 

[Streamus]

All items (with exception of my rollcage) are LOSI brand. So the quality cannot be a problem. And my gears were set with the same mesh as shown on your picture.

But maybe the problem lies somewhere else: I can move my spur gears a bit, they are not completely fixed solid to the middle gearbox. I tought this is normal, or dit I miss there?

 

[Scrogg]

The only time I have seen that much wear on a LST CB was after about 10+ gallons of use!
From your pics your mesh is a bit tight.
Olds mesh is dead on.

 

[olds97_lss]

I can move my spur gears a bit, they are not completely fixed solid to the middle gearbox. I tought this is normal, or dit I miss there?

Nope, that is normal. They wiggle around a bit.

It really just seems to me that you got bad pinions. I've never seen a steel pinion wear like that on plastic spurs. Not in the time your suggesting. Maybe years/gallons worth of wear and tear.

If you upgrade to TiNi spurs, then you need to upgrade to TiNi pinions as well anyway. The stock stuff won't hold up against those steel spurs.

 

[syphon68]

Did you remember to put the single washer between the two spur gears? not that it would cause that kind of wear but just a thought. Looks like just a bad pinion since I have two lst's and have zero wear on my pinions after 2 years and probably 10 gallons. btw lets see pics of your roll cage, is it RC solutions?