Who's rear end??
Lol

 

Yours. Didn't you rebuild yours? I was waiting on you to chime in.

 

Do you have an inch lb dial torque wrench to measure pinion bearing preload?
I went with this one:

I also went with a solid spacer vs crush sleeve. I kept reading that they held up better over time than crush sleeves.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/rat-4109

 

If your making the marking compound out of grease make sure you get all of it out.
Grease makes the gear oil breakdown…

 

Could use Orange RTV too. Then he wont have to worry about cleaning up every little bit.

 

I do have one but it makes no difference at this point.

I picked up all my parts today from several stores spread across town because no one store had all the parts I needed.

Got home, drained the oil and the gears look good.

Cleaned everything out and inspected really good. Pulled my tires, brakes and rotors per Srvc Man, pulled my bolts out of the U-joint flange to pinion flange and wait.......there is no Loctite 242 on them from when they guy who worked at the dealer did the install. No surprise there

For those who dont know or remember, a few months back i had to replace several ring gear bolts as 2x the rear end jumped on me and upon pulling the cover I found 5 of the 12 bolts had backed out and the heads were sheared off as the carrier was rotating. I had to tap and drill out the ones that were broke and I replaced ALL of them with new ones and red loctite.

Link to the bolts that were broken off from last time

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/3rd-gen...erentials.html

So with no loctite on them, it wasnt a big surprise not to see them on the flange bolts.

But wait for it........
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
there is about 3/16" of an inch of forward play in the pinion.

I swear if that damn Dodge mech still worked at the dealer I would find him and stuff his head in the carrier housing with it rotating.

I have a YouTube video uploading now of the entire thing. Some people just cannot do a GD thing right.

 

Video is up

 

Ohh, yeah, thats normal....lol
I cant hear the video. My work laptop has sound disabled and I'm restricted from making changes. damn IT guys and company policy...

That's ridiculous. I wonder when your rear end jumped because of the bolt issue, it caused excess pressure and crushed the collar a bit more?? Between that and wear on the bearing... but that is alot of play

 

Man that really stinks Weed
Have a saying over here in the UK but don't know if this site will let me post it??
But here goes.........that mech is a "TW#T"!!!!
But hey..... What do you expect?
Stealerships don't figure that people like you and I keep our trucks for so long, because we like them and really to be honest, fall in love with them.
They expect us to trade or buy new.
Tossers!!
Anywho....... All the best from me and the family in England.
Happy new year and good luck on your repair.
Al.

 

Axles are pulled. Will have the diff out in the next hour or so and then I will know everything. Right now I would def say pinion bearings and seal and I hope thats all