Cougar gears

[racingdwarf]

bought a second hand cougar last month, as soon as I got it I replaced the transmision housing with the new one with the extra screw, and fitted the RW gear set, as these had had good reports, since then it has done three small club meetings and petit
Last night at club just at the end of the final I could hear the dredded sound of gears jumping and stripping. Got home and got in bits, inside was ok, more ware than I would expect to see for just over an hours run time, but the 33T RW idler gear on the outside was just about bald and the metal layshaft one that drives it was not looking to good eather...so not to chuffed,
What concerns me tho is the amount of movment, I can get the gears to move back and forth about half a millimeter, bit of a hit and miss mesh!

Bearings are good, shafts are all ok, Anyone else had this? is this one of the things the alloy housing gets rid of (hope not) or will steal gears be the answear

[bigred5765]

steel gears are alot better then the originals, but if theres play between them the bearings must be damaged, there no way they can be moved apart unless bearing are gooosed or have seized and worn the casing,buy some really good quality bearing abec 5 or above if you can find them not cheap but worth the cost,
only other thing i can think of is in and out movement, ive shimed ares up to stop all but the smallest amount of play,

[Cockerill]

When you say there's .5mm of play, is that along the the shaft axis, or in/out of mesh?

The only time I've seen play that allows the mesh to change is when there has been a dodgy bearing or a bearing has seized at some point, causing the casing to warp around a bearing hole.

The steel gears will allow give a greater safety margin for any play, but the alloy housings certainly aren't needed. I'm still yet to put them on my car, because the plastic ones are working fine for me. I also run the Standard Schumacher rubber sealed bearings.

[racingdwarf]

the play is in and out of mesh, The play is in the bearings area, not gear to shaft, the bearings are in top condition, smooth running, the car has only been run outdoors three times since new,twice with last owner and once with me, so the is no water or rust etc, The only place I can think the play is is in the housing?

[moth898]

replace the bearings any ways, they might react differently under load. The RW gears were really tight on the internal transmission bearings, I had to hammer them in stightly.

The in out play is normal in the idler gear.

Did you replace the metal idler gear with the new RW external? If you didn't it might have worn the gear prematurely.

[racingdwarf]

After further investigation, I think it is the bearing spur gear side of the layshaft, bearing all looks fine, but thats the only place with a very small amount of movement, which is amplified to the idler gears the other side of the casing, so I have ordered new bearings and the steel idler gears, if that fails i will try another new gearbox case as tho the bearing fits the hole ok, it's not a snug fit and will fall straight out.
haveing had a good hard look the only thing that has crossed my mind is they are quite small bearings to support all the action going on, on the shaft

[racingdwarf]

Been having a look at the schumacher site, thing i can't work out is the cougar steel gear set (U3846) is £15.49, in this set you get the 2 gears. (mine arrived this morning)
Yet U3794, the upgrade for the SX is the same price, yet in that set you get £8.50 worth of shafts as well ( shafts are avalable U3795 £8.50) This makes the gears in theory £6.99

So why are the cougar gears £15.49, are they made of better stuff

[MattW]

By the looks of it, the Cat set is for a pair of shafts, and a pair of normal 48dp pinions. Where as the cougar set is a pair of gears that were designed for this application. What difference that makes, no idea, as I haven't ever had the cougar ones in my hands.

[racingdwarf]

Yer, did think they looked like a couple of pinions, one called heath, and the other robinson. lol