Am I looking at another rebuild of my 97 Ram 9.25 rear? Just did new pinion bearings and carrier bearings along with new crush sleeve. Put everything back together all seemed well. Got a groan doing about 30 while turning slightly left, like going through a merge into traffic. Pulled the rear cover off and everything seems to move freely. I can’t even obtain any backlash it’s either too tight or too loose. After the rebuild I drove it for about 3-4 days with no noise until maybe day 3 or 4.

Photos are the gear patter I have now after the rebuild with 0 obtainable backlash. I wanted to check to see what type of pattern I had and that’s what I got.

so I’m not sure if the ring and pinion gears are now wore out.

 

If you only been driving it for a couple days/weeks just redo the gear setup, the ring and pinion are still good. But try to figure out what went wrong the last time.

 

Only thing that bothers me with just adjusting it to be correct, is the crush sleeve? I understand them to be a 1 time use and not good for multiple crushes. Might want to install a new one.

I have in the past did hokey work replacing a outer pinion bearing and seal, then re-torque it with no problems.
Since you will be in there anyways, I think I would replace it.

 

Yea, I think I’m just going to order a gear kit with a new inner pinon bearing and crush sleeve. Unless anyone else thinks the gears are fine then I’ll reuse them. Since the inner pinion bearing needs to be removed with a press I don’t think I’ll be able to salvage it for re-use. Better safe than sorry right….? The ring gear feels like it has a semi sharp edge on the coast side. I’d rather buy new gears if needed and adjust once versus trying to adjust and correct a problem that may still exist after the fact. Thing I don’t know is if I have 3.55 or 3.92 gears…? It’s a 97 ram st 4x4 manual trans.

 

You can check the ring gear to see what ratio is stamped on it. You definitely need to ensure that the gear ratios of the front and rear axles match on a 4x4 truck.

 

thanks for that tid bit of info, because I was not aware of that.

 

You need some or the gears will bind. You are supposed to use a dial indicator but all the times I've done it was from "feel".
Was this there before you did the bearings? To me the pattern looks like it's a bit closer on the toe side.
tooth patterns

 

[QUOTE=Moparite;3598737]You need some or the gears will bind. You are supposed to use a dial indicator but all the times I've done it was from "feel".

Yea I can’t even get a thou. without everything spinning. I think what happend was I lost preload by accidentally over crushing the crush sleeve. Now that I think about it everything was loose. Adjusters were loose, Bearing caps were loose. When I put it together I had the spec of 8 thou of an inch on backlash so I thought everything was good. Backlash was set right and everything was tight and felt good and smooth when turning the yoke. Guess I done f****** up. Knowing the cause now, my main concern is if I need new gears or not. Drove about 36 miles with it like that if that helps…

 

According to your first post you checked the pattern AFTER you drove it. Leave the crush sleeve out then get the correct pattern(add or subtract shims) then put the crush sleeve in for final assembly. Everybody doesn't have bearing separators/pullers so that's why a lot of people let somebody else do it. It's more of a pita but you can do it with the right tools. You can look at the sticker under the hood for the gear ratio if it wasn't changed before.