Hello all,

2002 Ram 1500 with 9 1/4 rear end. 3.92 ratio.

I had some noise in the back end so I took off the dif cover and found the clutch clips on the magnet. Luckily all my gears looked good so I went with a bearing replacement kit and got new clips. I never removed the ring gear from the carrier and used the original shim on the pinion gear. I have exactly 25 in lb of torque preload on the new pinion bearings and have my backlash dialed in at .006-.007 all around on the ring gear. I am getting a gear pattern on the ring gear and it does not quite add up to the markings in the book so I was looking for suggestions.

For some reason I cannot upload pics to my posts but here is a link to a pic of my gear patterns.

https://dodgeforum.com/g/picture/4043448


Any suggestions? TYIA

 

As you can see in the picture the drive side pattern is deep and set closer to the heel but does not go off of the gear itself, while the coast side is more centered but set closer to the toe.

Update. I moved the carrier to the right and reset the backlash and got the drive side mark to come up higher on the gear. This new pattern with the drive side mark on the heal and the coast side on the toe was in the book and suggested a thicker pinion shim. I went from a .026 to .033 and rebuilt everything. Getting the same exact patterns. Did I not go big enough on the shim?

 

If you using the same pinion and it was originally setup correctly then I would not think changing the shim on the pinion would be needed. You might need to aim for the high side for backlash with used gears. I would go with original shims, set to maximum backlash and try that.