# White Crown gear on Vintage T-Jet



## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

Hi gang, I recently acquired a Vintage T-Jet, with old solid rivet chassis, PAT.APPLD. Toplate and X-mas tree arm. Anyway, although it appears 100% stock otherwise, it's has a White plastic(Nylon?) 15t Crown gear. I remember reading something about these White crown gears a few years ago here, but have now forgotten the significance. Can anyone enlighten me ? TIA


----------



## ajd350 (Sep 18, 2005)

My experience is that they have taken on unicorn status. They were common on early cars and there are good ones and bad ones. No magic.


----------



## slotking (May 27, 2008)

I had some myself, I think they came on some cars but I could be wrong


----------



## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

It's a t-jet "hop up gear" Ralph. A novelty item. 

Their legendary status is mostly boulder dash and all blarney. A bit too soft, many got gnarled or snaggled "toofs" and the center bore was susceptible to being honed out by the axle splines. As there are less survivors; collectors naturally over inflate their value considerably. 

In the day there werent a whole lot of gearing options. Given ALL the gearing, wheel, and tire options available today; one can easily duplicate it's effect as well as tune all around it. 

Id polish it up and float it on the Bay for ten bux just to see what some idio...er... someone would pay for it. The results might make good copy for our "Pay Bay Craziness" thread.


----------



## ajd350 (Sep 18, 2005)

Never seen one with a short boss. I have about 40 of them, some just recently came from early chassis that looked never to have been modified or fiddled with. All are for a 9-tooth. Otherwise I agree with your observations, Bill


----------



## alpink (Aug 22, 2010)

someone has created white crowns with the short boss(shoulder) for after market applications = hop up. but not Aurora. all the Aurora I have are identical to the standard 9 tooth but in white. 
folks who believe that there were after market white tooth hop up gears claim they are superior.
I think there is a member here (cannot recall who) that has made white tooth crowns for t-jet/AFX use. not sure.


----------



## mr_aurora (Oct 18, 2005)

*White gear mania*

It is my belief, not much fact just intuition, that the white gears are the FIRST tjet gears to be made by Aurora. They are almost always found on early tjets like the Fords and Corvette and Jaguar. Don't know why only those were white nylon but I do know they were all manufactured in West Hempstead at good old Aurora Plastics Company by Tool and Die makers. Just like the solid rivet chassis were ALL made in West Hempstead, NY. Note that there are Wild Ones and Tuff Ones, and early AFX solid rivet chassis out there. Where were they made, you guessed it, good old Aurora in West Hempstead NY USA by those little old tool and die machinists. With all the crap coming out of China with no Quality Control, I really miss those machinists.


----------



## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

alpink said:


> someone has created white crowns with the short boss(shoulder) for after market applications = hop up. but not Aurora. all the Aurora I have are identical to the standard 9 tooth but in white.
> folks who believe that there were after market white tooth hop up gears claim they are superior.
> I think there is a member here (cannot recall who) that has made white tooth crowns for t-jet/AFX use. not sure.


 The one I have, is identical to a normal Nylatron - standard T-Jet 15t, that meshes with a 9t pinion.


----------



## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

*thanks*



mr_aurora said:


> It is my belief, not much fact just intuition, that the white gears are the FIRST tjet gears to be made by Aurora. They are almost always found on early tjets like the Fords and Corvette and Jaguar. Don't know why only those were white nylon but I do know they were all manufactured in West Hempstead at good old Aurora Plastics Company by Tool and Die makers. Just like the solid rivet chassis were ALL made in West Hempstead, NY. Note that there are Wild Ones and Tuff Ones, and early AFX solid rivet chassis out there. Where were they made, you guessed it, good old Aurora in West Hempstead NY USA by those little old tool and die machinists. With all the crap coming out of China with no Quality Control, I really miss those machinists.


 Good to know- Bob :thumbsup: and thanks for replying to my thread


----------



## rdm95 (May 8, 2008)

I all of a sudden have like 10 of these from recent auction wins. I had never seen one prior to these..


----------



## ajd350 (Sep 18, 2005)

Could be plausible, Bob. Mostly the early short-step pickup shoe cars had them in this most recent batch. Some were the normal shoes, but the shoes could easily worn out and been changed. Several also had black-lam arms and red comm plate arms.


----------



## warnergt (Feb 9, 2000)

mr_aurora said:


> It is my belief, not much fact just intuition, that the white gears are the FIRST tjet gears to be made by Aurora. They are almost always found on early tjets like the Fords and Corvette and Jaguar.


That agrees with what I've seen. I used to hate getting cars with the white 
gear. I thought somebody had replaced them because I never bought a 
new T-jet with a white gear back in the 60's. But these gears kept showing 
up in older cars. It became obvious that there was a trend to what I was 
seeing. These must have been some of the first crown gears. Because of 
that, I consider it a bonus to pick up a car with a white gear today.

Speaking of crown gears, I've always been fond of Aurora's Hop-Up gear set. 
You get a 12-tooth pinion (versus the stock 9-tooth) with a narrower 
crown gear. It's a ratio that seems to work very well and is not as 
drastic of a change as the Tuff Ones gear set (15-tooth pinion with even 
narrower crown gear). I've collected a bunch of these Hop Up gears but 
found myself with more pinion gears than crown gears and was looking 
for an alternative. So I did a little study on Aurora crown gears and this 
is what I found.

I decided to measure the length of the collar from the back side of the 
crown to the end of the collar.

The Hop-Up gears had a pretty significant variance. They ranged from 
0.04" to 0.075" (about 30 gears measured).
The majority of the gears were close to 0.04" with most of the rest 
near 0.06". I had two or three out to the 0.075" mark. All of the 
gears appeared untampered with; none appeared to be sanded down from 
a stock gear.

The Formula crown gears measured close to 0.06" (2 measured). 

For reference, stock crown gears measured 0.08" to 0.082" with 
most at 0.08".

By the way, it occurred to me that the critical distance was from 
the teeth to the collar end (not just the collar), so I measured 
from the end of the teeth to the back of the crown. This dimension 
was very consistent around 0.095".

Summary on collar sizes
-----------------------
Hop Up Gear: 0.040" or 0.060"
Formula Gear: 0.060"
Stock Gear: 0.080"
Tuff Ones/AFX Gear: 0.030" or 0.035"
Super II Gear: 0.040"

The Formula Gear matches the Hop Up gears perfectly. At the time, you 
could still buy these online (maybe you still can) so I was able to pick up 
the additional crown gears that I needed.

Added note: When I say "Formula", I mean gears for the Slimline chassis.


----------



## Ralphthe3rd (Feb 24, 2011)

*Good to know...*

Thank you for your insightful comments, especially the size chart....



warnergt said:


> Summary on collar sizes
> -----------------------
> Hop Up Gear: 0.040" or 0.060"
> Formula Gear: 0.060"
> ...


----------



## shocker36 (Jul 5, 2008)

I only have one t-jet with the white crown and it came from a collector who does not race or modifies his cars and was told it was from first run prodution, it also has the christmas tree arm black mags solid rivet chassis and pat appl top plate and is probably the smoothest car Ive ever seen.


----------



## 60chevyjim (Feb 21, 2008)

I think they are kinda cool looking. so I allways keep them . and I put them in my tjet cars that I do xlerator conversions on. not that it is any different than the color, but it looks cool with the xlerator conversion parts .just to be different .


----------



## slotking (May 27, 2008)

I had some good luck with the 2 i had in my race cars.
I liked them.


----------

