I recently bought a 1999 dodge ram 1500 5.9, had to replace all the brake lines, and components. when I took it for a test drive I heard what sounded like brakes hanging up, only going forward not in reverse. I put it up on jack stands and pinpointed the noise to the diff. I decided to rebuild it myself. I just got the rear apart and none of the bearings seem to be bad, none of the gears are worn out. I am going to replace all the bearings since I have it apart. my question is , when I pull the spindle out, I was able to pull the crush sleeve off with my fingers with no effort. is this normal? all the gears look new, I'm thinking the previous owner had the rear done and whoever did it, did not torque the crush sleeve correctly. could that cause a growling noise?

 

Yeah, crush sleeve will slide right off. It's sole purpose is to provide proper bearing preload when the pinion nut is torqued down.