LT230 Rear Centre Diff Bearing Seizing High Range Gear

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

Hi everyone, finally getting around to reassembling the LT230 transfer case from a 2003 Defender TD5. After fitting the rear taper bearing inner race (Timken) to the rear centre diff shaft, the high range gear can no longer rotate on the bush or the centre diff shaft. Everything was thoroughly lubed with EP90 oil on assembly and the low range gear can still rotate freely. We had replaced the standard 1:1.4 high range gear with a new Ashcroft 1:1.3 high range gear and a new bush (IEE100050) was fitted. I confess that the bush was a blue-bag, not a genuine.

The bearing was initially pressed on with a hydraulic press and we used the old high range gear bush as a drift/spacer to press on the inner race. High range gear wouldn’t rotate so we very carefully pressed the bearing back off a little by supporting the front face of the high range gear. High range gear could now rotate freely but there was too much clearance between the components, axially. The bearing was then tapped “home” with a wooden block and hammer.
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It felt nice and solid and the high range gear could still rotate but we didn’t measure the clearances. We gave it one more solid tap with the hammer “to make sure it was home” but now high range gear is seized once again. I can press the bearing back off and re tap it home again lightly to maintain high range gear rotation but this doesn’t sound right to me.

Three possibilities spring to mind:
1. the new blue-bag high range gear bush is too short
2. the new Ashcroft 1:1.3 high range gear is too thick, axially
3. the bearing should in fact only be lightly pushed/tapped on to leave a sufficient clearance to allow the high range gear to still rotate.

Has anyone else had this problem or can advise how this should be done? Ta.

[ashtrans]

Very likely to be duff bush, we couldn’t get good ones so now make our own, was the old one no good ?, ours are on our website, Dave Ashcroft

[Max Headroom 2.3m]

Very likely to be duff bush, we couldn’t get good ones so now make our own, was the old one no good ?, ours are on our website, Dave Ashcroft
Apologies for the late follow-up.
You are right Dave, it was a duff bush...two, in fact! I had apparently bought two blue bag bushes on separate occasions (duff memory[bigrolf]). I wish I had known that Ashcroft make their own as I would have bought one when I bought my box of goodies from Ashcroft.
The first blue bag bush gave the result of my opening post so I checked the axial clearance on the bench and found that the bush was less than 0.03mm longer than the new high range gear.
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That as well as a slightly worn face on the dog clutch and no wonder it was seizing. I then found I had a second blue bag bush but I couldn’t even get that one to fit inside either the new high range gear or the old one which is slightly worn https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/icons/icon8.png. I ended up using the old (genuine ?) bush which is 0.05mm longer than the new high range gear (shown in photo). I also turned the dog clutch bush and sleeve around so the less worn side (ex-low range side) now faces the high range gear. The high range gear now turns freely with the bearing firmly tapped into place and I can just get 0.05mm feeler in between high gear and dog clutch but it is a bit tight.
To be clear the new high range gear from Ashcroft was spot on and not the issue. Thanks.