Simple question. Not sure if I'm being overly paranoid. Is this normal/ok for for new billet OP gears?

 

no

 

Did you ask Boundary?

 

Looks like previously installed.

 

I'm going to go against the grain here. My brand new Boundary OP came looking similar, but not as bad, as this. I asked FM if this was normal. They asked BE. BE claims it's part of the jigging process from machining the gears and is unimportant. I would be inclined to agree as this is the inner face that's on the crank. If it installs fine and slides on the crank easy, I would run it.

Contact BE if you are uncertain. Additionally, look through the oil feed hole at the gears and spin it to inspect internally. I opted to not disassemble the unit as this voids BE's warranty.

 

Boundary says this is normal. I think it's crap that defects like this are normal for them. The vendor I bought them from opened up two other sets of gears they had in stock and said both sets looked just like mine. The gears in the pictures online don't show these normal marks, I think they should use my pics in their marketing pictures as the pics on their website the gears don't feature these normal defects.

They claim these are from tooling to hold them, but they also claim they are made from strong tough material. I guess it's not as tough as whatever material holds these during the machining process.

But they said it's no problem so going to run them, just feel mislead from the pics online vs what actually is delivered.

 

Yep, I agree that it's kind of shitty. However, the only critical surfaces are within the gears themselves and the side faces for proper sealing. The crank couldn't care less about how rough the surface it's driving is.

There could be an argument about deep scratches like this causing stress concentrations, but I haven't heard of a single case of someone blowing up BE billet gears.