Well, i tore the whole thing down again. Something about towing a travel trailer and going over everything in my head I STILL didn't feel comfortable. The noise was getting a little worse, especially when coasting. I admit, I only torqued the side adjusters to factory spec of 75 ft/lbs. but after reading TONs of articles on how they should be torqued to 150+ I decided to give it a shot again. I torqued the side adjusters to 75 because I thought that was contributing to my heat issues. Come to find out, it was my pinion preload that was generating all of that heat. It was too high for used bearings (24 in/lbs.)

So with the mindset of doing this one more time, I checked patterns and they were a bit shallow for one, drive was centered towards heel and the coast was towards the heel a bit more. Not even close to centered. Remembering the noise on drive when I was at 0.035 shim, I opted to replace my 0.031 shim with a 0.033 from the dealer. I feel SO much better using a 1 piece shim than having a few stacked up. SO apart it went again.

I'm using a Ratech solid spacer instead of the crush sleeve. AT .602, the pinion preload was too tight, at .604, it was too loose, not wiggly loose, just no preload (0). The Ratech spacer only gives you .002 increments so getting it in the middle wasn't possible - or so I thought - It then dawned on me, and I can't believe I never thought of doing this before, but gearinstalls.com give me the idea of "lapping" the spacer with wet sandpaper at 220 grit. I got the spacer down to .603 and with the pinion nut tightened to 200+ ft/lbs, I'm at 10 in/lbs. of rotational torque. BINGO! I then took the old pinion nut off, loc-tite on the threads and installed a brand new nut from the dealer.

I reused the old Timken bearings since they pulled off nice and didn't exhibit any overheating issues, discoloration and the bearings themselves look new still. So pressed them on with my new 0.033 shim, cranked down on the adjusters to 75 ft./lbs. and got 0.006 backlash, checked pattern and drive was towards toe, coast towards heel. Cranked the adjuster to 150+ ft./lbs. and ended up with 0.010 backlash, took pattern and they looked perfect! I tried to get to 0.008, but with the patterns I got at 0.010, I'm happy. The coast is mostly centered - just a smidge towards heel and the drive is centered and has a nice contact pattern. I only took patterns with the cap bolts torqued to 100 ft./lbs. as it would be pointless to check them otherwise since torquing the cap bolts brings the gear in ever so slightly closer to the pinion.

So my first test run, hit 60 MPH, I have a little noise during coast at 45 MPH range and a slight noise at around 50 MPH on acceleration and quickly goes away. I'm listening for it - much quieter and from what seems to be, finally, the perfect install, maybe the noise will quiet a little more? I can only be hopeful - kind of doubt it, but I'm very happy with my install, finally. After I got home, took temps and I was at 116*F with the Mag-Hytec cover on. Nice. I learned a LOT from this and appreciate everyone listening ... er ... reading.

I do plan on doing a write up, maybe when I'm out of town, I'll start when I get some free time. Now off to install my trans and diff temperature gauges!

 

Again, huh? Well you're definitely the go to guy for advice on diff. noise. Can't wait for the write up.