B Ring Gear

[arlen]

My ring gear has some wear on it, and Steiner had them for 30 bucks so I bought one. I took my flywheel to the machinist to have him resurface it, and I figured I would have him press on the new ring gear. He took 1 look at the replacement and said I wouldn’t be happy with it. He pointed out on the original one that there are little chamfers cut between each tooth on the business side to allow the bendix gear to engage it when the ring gear teeth may not be rotated to align perfectly with the bendix. The Steiner one has straight cut gears.
Without the chamfers, he said that my starter would sometimes not engage and I would have to repeatedly hit it to knock the ring gear into position.
So that’s what you get for 30 bucks I guess
Looks like OEM will be the way to go on that part. Can anyone confirm that the IH replacement has that relief cut between each tooth?
The OEM one is $71.00 so not terrible, but I would hate to order it, then have it be the same.

[T-Mo]

I don't remember what mine looked like when I replaced the flywheel on my B last year. I thought about just replacing the ring gear, but I picked up a good used flywheel from JP Tractor Salvage that came off a 200. Fit perfectly. If I remember correctly, the ring gear on the old one and the replacement flywheel was chamfered a bit.

[MiCarl]

I saw that when I replaced the ring gear on my H. I'm not sure how much of that chamfer was "original" and how much was wear. In any case the sharp gear hasn't been an issue on my H, although it probably only has a couple dozen starts to date.

[Gary Dotson]

A lot of the time, people will turn a worn ring gear around, when they do, they lose that chamfer. I don't know how well that has worked out for them but I've always been opposed to doing that, for that very reason. You might call OEM and ask if their gear has the chamfer. It might work kinda ok without it but I want the chamfer on mine.

[arlen]

I can confirm that the Case IH replacement ring gear DOES NOT have the chamfer. It is no better than the Steiner $30 one.
I'm sending it back and am just going to keep my original ring gear. It's not in terrible shape. I just thought I would replace it since the tractor was split, but I'm not going to replace it with an inferior design.

[Gary Dotson]

If you do have some chewed up teeth, you can knock the gear off, rotate it 90 deg. and reinstall. A 4 cyl. engine will develop 2 worn areas on the ring gear, turning it 90 deg. will get you good teeth where they are needed. I have a friend who is doing just that,on a Cockshutt tractor, right now. He's rotating his 60 deg. for a 6 cyl. engine. (3 worn spots)

[Jim Becker]

. . . you can knock the gear off, rotate it 90 deg. and reinstall. . . .

It has been a long time since I looked closely at one of those. But I am recalling a very small flange that the gear sits in front of. If you just knock it off, you will knock off part of the flange too. You need to heat and expand it to get it over the flange (can be done with a torch). Of course, before it is hot enough to go over the flange, it will be hot enough to just rotate it in place.

I hope I'm not just dreaming up this whole flange thing. I know I've seen it on some engine.

[Gary Dotson]

I've never done one on one of these engines but I've never encountered a ring gear that I couldn't just carefully knock off. I've never seen the flange you refer to.

[arlen]

If you do have some chewed up teeth, you can knock the gear off, rotate it 90 deg. and reinstall. A 4 cyl. engine will develop 2 worn areas on the ring gear, turning it 90 deg. will get you good teeth where they are needed. I have a friend who is doing just that,on a Cockshutt tractor, right now. He's rotating his 60 deg. for a 6 cyl. engine. (3 worn spots)

That’s a great idea, so I was looking at it closely this morning, and it seems pretty evenly worn. It’s possible that the last time it was overhauled or split, my FIL rotated it, but honestly it looks pretty darn good. The guy that resurfaced my fly wheel said he would not of even considered replacing it if it were his tractor. Some of what I originally perceived as wear is actually that extra cut at the base of every tooth.