Hey guys, just finished getting all the parts together for my rear, am now installing the carrier. I can not seem to get a better pattern than this with .008 backlash. Assuming it's my pinion depth that is wrong even though I'm using the factory pinion shim with the original gears. Whats going on here? i do have a shim pack on hand.

 

Looks relatively OK to me.

http://www.sierragear.com/ring-and-pinion-gear-pattern/

Pinion depth in particular looks reasonable.

How does that pattern compare to the wear on the gear? If it's about the same, then run it.

 

Agreed. The drive side wear pattern might indicate a slight, tiny, wee bit of excess lash, but you're checking it cold at 0.008" somewhat counters that assumption. Is the pinion preloaded and snug?

Is/was the gear set noisy on coast? Mine has been from the day it turned 16K miles, and I presumed that was the nature of the 9-bolt beast. It's had regular inspections at oil changes (all two of them) and no unusual wear patterns have developed.

 

Did you remove the pinion as part of this rebuild process? Agreed, you have to make sure the pinion is pre-loaded (as it would be during actual operation) before you set backlash and check the pattern.

Did the factory side shim(s) get reused to get you to that backlash setting? If they did, you're probably in good shape.

Other than that, it's fairly normal for the factory contact pattern to run off the end of the tooth on the drive side. Remember those gears have been working against eachother for thousands of miles already before you took it apart.