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Just purchased a pinion gear from ebay. it was advertised as a RC10T3 gear...but low and behold...its not. The face width is about 1.5mm shorter than stock. I'm concerned the short face width will wear the mating PLASTIC spur gear unevenly. The stock pinion face width matches the width of the spur gear.

I contacted the seller and he states that he runs this gear all the time with no problem. I'll admit, I've just got back into the hobby after 19 year hiatus, so I'm kind of green...but this dosn't make sense from a gear design perspective. If the pinion and spur were made of the same material then I might agree that the effective face width can be less than the actual face width, but since the spur gear is plastic, the required effective face width may be the entire width of the gear teeth...

I need some real world experience from you guys...

Any thoughts?

i've never had a problem running like that.

as long as the mesh is good and the pitch is correct you should be fine.

Yes, gear width has no effect on performance or durability. Pitch is really all that matters.

Thanks guys. I would've thought the harder pinion would eventually wear a square shaped notch in the softer plastic spur gear...I guess if you've never had this problem I shouldn't worry

just make sure you set the gear mesh right, it shouldn't be tight. a good way to set the mesh is to put a peice of paper between the two gears. that spacing is just about perfect.