bull pinion shaft

[benji]

hello, I removed the brake axle en house to renew the seals and bearing, and found that the teeth of the pinion are missing pieces.
On both sides i have the same problem. What whould have caused this? The big pinion is not damaged, if i get other shafts wil this work?

[Brian]

You do not say which Major you have but I would guess a Super Major as this was a common problem.

Ford changed the spec. of the final drive which reduced the life of the gears plus the fitting of dif. lock did not help. The idea was that dif. lock is engaged when the operator thinks he sees a problem but most operators leave it until the wheels are slipping before jumping on the pedal. I have the same problem with my Super and have managed to find a couple of good second hand pinion shafts on e-bay.

Make sure that no pieces of gear are still in the system and that the ram cylinder is OK. The first indication of problems is nearly always the lift dropping due to large scores in the ram cylinder bore.

[benji]

Thanks for the answer Brian. it's not a super, but a 52 fmd. so the problem is not caused by wrong use? If i get a second hand shaft, will the difference of the surfaces of the pinions (caused by wear) not be a problem?

[Brian]

That is very rare to see a problem with a Major, the Super and Power Major gave occasional problems, the Super being the worst. New Performance Supers were worse than the earlier ones.

Could your Major have been run on steel wheels or wide tyres? They really did not have enough power to give problems as the rear axle was highly over-engineered, as I have said a number of times I have seen the basic back end fitted to a Rolls Royce Merlin of around 1400 hp.

The other cause could be old age because the old girl is over 60 years old now. I do not see a problem with putting in second hand parts as long as they come from a Major between 1952 and 1958.