So I'm installing 3.42thick gears in my axle and would like someone to check this pattern. Is the pinion too deep? Backlash is 7 and bearing preload is set.I built a stack as close as I could to the original shim and this is the pattern I got. On the pinion it said +10 but that would make it go even closer to the gears right?

 

Pattern looks pretty much perfect to me. Finish it up and run it.

 

Sweet, I ran the car a total of 35km today and not a sound from the axle as far as I could hear. I also did some reverse driving and no sound then either. Can I assume now that the gears are forever lasting until I die?

 

Well I would hope so. As long as you got the bearing preload set correctly it should be good for many years of moderate driving. The more you beat on it the less life it will have.

 

Sweet, thanks!

 

So I've driven it now for about 200miles but it feels like the gap (backlash) between the gears is a bit too much. It makes a klucking sound between 2nd and 3rd gear and it kinda got lots of play when standing still and switching between drive and reverse. So should I open it and change a shim? I think I got 9 bl when I measured it when it was done and 7 if I moved the thinnest shim from one side to the other.

 

Backlash should be between .007 and .009 on most gears. If you got the differential in there nice and tight then it shouldn't be a problem. If you didn't get it tight then you need to fix that. The differential should be shimmed tight enough that you can not pull it out by hand.

 

Yukon instructions said .006-.010. I do have a little play in the u-joint behind the tranny so it might be just as simple as to swap that out. I'm going to my friends garage next weekend to check what speedo gears I have and swap out the u-joint so hopefully it sorts it out.

The carrier was really tight but I really never checked if I could spin it by hand, atleast it was tight as #### to fit the shimpacks in.