REM Super Polished 5.29 Revolution Gears for Zander's 2020 Tacoma TRD Offroad
(28 BIG pics loading)
Feb 10 2023

Zander's 2020 Tacoma on Nitto Ridge Grapplers (285/75/R17) and stock 3.91 gears. Some armor plating and extra camping gear might be adding another 1000 pounds. The stock 3.5 liter with auto-tranny is working hard. The solution? 5.29 Revolution gears that have been REM super polished.
Zander is local to me here in Prescott and was able to remove both the rear 8.75" and the front 8" clam. The TRD Offroad has the very stout 8.75" with factory elocker.....a highly desired combo. The 8.75" hits the bench first. The front clam was also regeared to 529 but no write-up on that. Both sets of gears were REM super polished using the inhouse process at RevolutionGear..
Even though the bearings are only 2 years old, the plan is to replace them.....genuine factory bearings.
Sometimes, the 2 jawed pullers just can't reach behind the carrier bearings to pull them off so a little creativity is required. The bearing separator is pulling on the bearing cage itself but it offers enough pull in conjunction with a wisp of heat from a propane torch to pop the tight bearing free. The old bearing is junk at this point and should never be re-used.
New bearings and the polished 529 ring gear are ready to go on.
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Tap tap.....new carrier bearings going on.
This portion is complete and now to the pinion end.
The pinion flange is almost like brand new. I still hit it with extra fine 2000 grit sandpaper.
Now to remove the "old" pinion seal.
A "tool" was made up from a big washer cut in half that allows the small outer race to be removed with no damage to the oil retainer.
The pinion shim is located behind the large inner race. Past experience has shown that a .0724" shim will get me close so that's what we will start with.
New pinion bearing is pressed on.....
Now to put the pinion end of things together minus the crush sleeve. A crush sleeve is not needed for a paint check.
A quick backlash check and it is way too small.....measured about .001" so will change out the washer plates (shims). The washer plates are visible in the picture to the outside of the carrier bearings. Those plates are responsible for setting the backlash(freeplay) and the bearing preload.
It's important to have a full washer plate selection.
With about .006" backlash, the painted pattern shows a bit too shallow (not enough shim). "Past experience" did not pay off this time :) This is the drive side and you can see the heavy long line on the tops of the tooth and almost no line closest to the root. The name of the game here is "balance".....length of the line on top equalling the line in the root.
Reverse painted drive side.....shows a long line on the top....and almost none in the root.
The pinion paint really amplifies this situation but in the exact opposite mirror condition. This time, the long line is in the root and almost none on the tops. Let's try to get them closer to equal lines. Let's re-shim with a thicker shim.
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Skipped a few pics.....changed out the pinion depth shim to .0764" which is a solid .004" "deeper". This is the drive side....notice the lines are pretty much equal top and bottom.
Reverse painted drive side.....looks equal. The Motorola camera I'm using appears to have limited clarity for these kinds of shots.
The pinion tooth appears to have "good balance" also. The depth looks to be pretty much exact or right on :)
Take it apart one more time....new crush goes in, new genuine seal, and the pinion flange. Tighten the pinion nut, crush the sleeve, and stop at 12 inch/pounds of pinion preload.
Other end is assembled and ready for Zander to shuttle it home.
A snapshot of the data sheet. These gears are set to exact depth for no noise.