Planetary gear alignment and indexing method and associated tool

摘要

A method is disclosed for assembly of a planetary gear drive (10), wherein the gear drive (10) includes a ring gear (12), a sun gear (14), and a plurality of planet gears (16) engaged with the ring gear (12) and sun gear (14). The method includes mounting the planet gears (16) within a carrier (20), with the planet gears (16) freely rotatable relative to the carrier (20). A gear alignment tool (30) is inserted through a bore (28) in a front face (22) of the carrier (20) and is used to index the planet gears (16) into an aligned rotational position for proper subsequent engagement with the ring gear (12) and sun gear (14).