Rawze's Daily blog...

[bigben]

Can i use gear lube when I change engine oil. Will it be ok. I use valvoline 5 w 40 15000 mile oil change. Pls recommend

[Rawze]

Just purchased a new set of drives couple weeks ago. Truck now has 1,312,458 miles on it ...

It is another set of Bridgestone M710's.

This is the 3rd set of drive tires ...

First set went form 0 miles to 435,000 miles, came with truck.

Next set went to 827,000 miles. Purchased for roughly $2800.

The set I just replaced made it to 1,312,000 miles. (cost unknown yet, will have to see when I get the bill, an account with same type of discount was used).

I would say that 3 sets is not bad for my truck since I got the truck new. They lasted this time, 485,000 miles. They still had some life in them, but it was getting winter and tread very low on them (5/32" or so), it is better safe than sorry.

-- I had a bit of excessive wear on inner front tandem drive tire form having a wheel bearing issue a couple times, and having to re-tighten it a couple extra times,.. but other than that, they have been quite good to us.

I am also glad I replaced them when I did. We had to drive in some of that nasty weather that was causing so many accidents... So far so good.

[Rawze]

The pilot bearing in the centre of my engine flywheel started going bad about 2 weeks ago (not part of the transmission or clutch).

Took my truck over to Mr.hags to have the tranny pulled, as i do not have a tranny jack or a paved driveway to pull it easily myself.

After 1.4 million miles without being touched, decided to go ahead and replace all the guts of my tranny since it was already off the truck.

1.4 million miles of running 75/90 (or 80/90) oil in my tranny, plus letting it run in neutral as much as possible since the truck was new ... it still looked like there was little to no wear at all in it.

Here is the most amount of wear we could find. It is the wear on the synchronizer, it still looked pretty damn good though...
      
Not bad for 1.4 million original miles on it. By feel, you could tell it had some polishing on it / was not as rough as a new one would be, but it still looked and operated great.

----

The highest worn gear was 9th and 10th gears where they mesh. This truck gets shifted into and out of gear so many hundred times a day, as we shift in and out of neutral as much as possible to save fuel. We have done this for the whole life of the truck.

Here is the wear from those gears...
   

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the rest of everything looked beautiful. Here is a few pics of other gears as they came out and were wiped off ...
   
   

nothing had any wear on it to speak of. Everything else literally looked like it was almost factory new in the whole tranny including the counter-shafts, bearings, literally everything was pristine. Even Mr.hag was scratching his head in dismay at how very little wear there was. He thought for sure he was going to find something in it somewhere because we ran it in neutral its whole life, but quite the opposite happened.

[dhirocz]

Im still stuck on $2800 for a set of M710's. Im due to get rid of my M726's soon...at this rate they'll be at the wear limit by the end of the year. Im surprised Ive managed to average 7.3 with those things on there. Ill never make that mistake again.

Im busy stocking up on parts for my inframe right now. Might have to stop and do tires soon before my company switches tire accounts. Im not aware of anywhere in savannah that stocks them. Im really hoping between a fresh engine and a good set of drives I can average 8.5mpg. My new boss is scratching his head how I can get those numbers with my 871 and his 2250's cant come close, lol!

420k+ miles is crazy good wear...I will only have about 280k on mine before they are due, and Im not harsh on mine at all, and have no funky wear patterns either. Is that typical of those tires, or is there something special you do to coax that kind of mileage out of them?

[Rawze]

(03-27-2020 )dhirocz Wrote:  ...
420k+ miles is crazy good wear...I will only have about 280k on mine before they are due, and Im not harsh on mine at all, and have no funky wear patterns either. Is that typical of those tires, or is there something special you do to coax that kind of mileage out of them?

We never let our boost levels go above 12-15 psi, we are in neutral as much as possible, I keep after the axle hub torque like a hawk, and I am always ensuring the tire inflation is at least 105~ish psi. We are also mostly a highway truck.

I know of several others who's tires will last that long too, i am not unique.

[tree98]

What made you decide not to go with a Weller reman trans ?

[Rawze]

(03-27-2020 )tree98 Wrote:  What made you decide not to go with a Weller reman trans ?

ehh??? -- Mr. Hag rebuilt my tranny by hand / replaced the entire guts and bearings out with 100% oem parts.


I did no use a weller tranny... though that would have been my second choice if it could not heve been re-built, simply due to their nation wide warranty that also somewhat covers replacement labor costs (as useless as it may be), and the quality I have seen from them so far, all things considered, is not bad from what I have experienced.

I did use them for my front diff though, a couple years ago. Have had zero issues with it. It was a bit cheaper than sourcing and replacing all the internals for the rear myself.

[JimT]

(03-26-2020 )Rawze Wrote:  The pilot bearing in the centre of my engine flywheel started going bad about 2 weeks ago (not part of the transmission or clutch).

What were the symptoms/signs that alerted you to the flywheel?

[Lonestar10]

I know when I had bearing go on a ram 1500 it made aweful squeeling noises I thought it was throwout bearing as I had a rumble in clutch pedal when pushed. Turned out it was the pilot bearing as it started to eat the nose of the input shaft and then finnaly melted the 2 together causing me to be unable to disengage the transmission thankfully I had safety disengaged so so I could shut off and restart engine to limp it home and tear it apart to find the carnage.