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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dave_man,

Dave, are you making the statement "Two visibly different tooth profiles are meshing" based on current condition, or original design being mismatched profiles. What you see is not necessarily from a design mismatch (although it could be) but could also be due to an overloaded gearset, lubrication issue, or a bunch of problems that could just result in severe profile wear. What may very well has happened is the original pinion may have been reverse engineered as far as geometry and duplicated in some mom and pop shop that thinks they can make gearing. [Hey, we have a hobbing machine and can therefore make gears!] However, reverse engineering by such places rarely takes into account that the original pinion may have been carburized and the mom and pop shop provided an induction hardened pinion. The result would be a gearset with a drastically reduced durability rating and what you see could very well be the result. In such cases you have to also reduce the horsepower carried or total destruction will be the result.

I note that you are in Central Texas so I would suggest you get with a gear manufacturer (Lufkin, Prager, etc.) and have a proper geatset engineered.

I don't know your application but I would not continue operation until you get a replacement gearset. You probably aren't far from actual tooth breakage which can often destroy the gearbox totally. At least at the moment it would appear you can salvage the casing and just be faced with replacement of the rotating elements.

John from PA

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John from PA,

The hooked and bent teeth look kind of like a worn roller chain sprocket on my dirt bike.

http://www.antiquemotorcycle.org/TheMag/dept/200802/ima...s_and_g_sprocket.jpg

Here is a link to the FALK failure analysis standard
http://www.delzer.com/Rexnord/falk/108010.pdf