I was replacing the pinion seal on my rear end yesterday and my dad removed the nut on the pinion yoke before I could mark the current position of the nut (which screwed us over of course). I looked around online and couldn't find a definitive answer on what to do, so we gave it our best guess. On reinstall I tightened the nut down right to the point where all of the play was out of the nut and felt like it was making contact with the crush seal. I then went another 1/8 turn and called it good.

After taking it out on a 15 mile test drive yesterday, there is a humming noise coming from the rear of the car. It is most noticeable when driving 35-40 and letting off of the gas completely. The noise will continue the entire time that I am costing at 35-40. However, the instant I give it any gas, it goes away.

Now I have no idea if the nut is too loose or too tight. Is there any sure fire method of figuring out where the nut should be without having to rip the rear end apart and replace the crush seal? Or should I just find a shop that works on rear ends and have them deal with it so I don't burn out my bearings?

 

Marking the pinion nut is not a good way of doing this anyway. Put red locktite on the threads and torque the nut to 150 foot pounds.

Did you put sealer in the splines of the yoke before you put it on? If you didn't then you will likely have a leak through the splines.

 

You can try another 1/8th turn and see if it helps otherwise have a shop fix it up right. Probably wont cost much to just do a seal and crush sleeve. Although if I had it that far apart I would probably replace the smaller pinion bearing at minimum another $10-15 in parts.

 

Big gear head:

You are right. I did not put any sealer on the sprockets of the yoke. I also saw 150 ftlbs in another thread in my research but thought was for installing a new crush sleeve. 150 seems like a lot for a reused crush sleeve, but it may be worth a shot before I take it into a shop.

 

A new standard crush spacer requires about 300 foot pounds to crush it, so 150 is safe. It's tight enough to hold everything in place, but not enough to change the bearing preload.

Ratech makes a spacer that only requires about 150 foot pounds to crush, but you don't have one of them.

Do not put sealer on the pinion shaft. Only put it in the splines in the yoke. If you put it on the pinion shaft the yoke will push it into the outer pinion bearing.

 

What kind of sealer do you recommend?

 

There are several things that you can use. I usually use RTV, but Teflon thread sealer can be used too.

 

I have always used high temp oil resistant RTV this stuff works well too

https://www.amazon.com/Permatex-8118.../dp/B0023GM2KK