So I “fixed” the leak at the diff cover but turns out it wasn’t leaking from there at all. It is leaking from around the pinion nut, around the washer. There isn’t any play in the pinion and no whining. The nut is not loose either but it may have lost some tightness . I was going to attempt to fix this leak by smearing rtv all around the nut and washer but upon closer inspection I can move the washer behind the nut very easily. Does this mean the nut has come loose? What to do? Do I tighten it just a tad till washer doesn’t move anymore and then rtv it ? Use torque wrench?

https://youtube.com/shorts/3iGxrAjfbRQ?si=tXVjrnzQqUAYSHDC

 

There is a procedure for tightening that nut to put preload on the bearings, but for sure you should crank it down some to stop that leak and preserve the gears and bearings in the differential from damage due to slop in the set. When I replace a pinion seal I mark the nut and shaft before removing so I can put it back in the exact same place, then give it an added 10 degree turn to get that preload right.

 

Well I gave errrh two ugga duggas with the impact. Pinion has slight more resistance then before when turned. Hopefully I didn’t tighten too much. Will test drive soon.

 

That's not good. You may have gone to far on the bearing preload.
The problem is fluid leaking past the yoke/ pinion splines and out from behind the washer. Pretty common and it really needs to come apart a bit to re-seal that..

 

I used this procedure on my 10 bolt and it worked perfectly https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...al-change.html

 

Damn let’s say I did overdo it. What would happen? What kind of noises would I hear. Seems like a great time to finally buy some gears and tackle a diff job once and for all .

 

About the only thing that you'd damage would be a bearing, and they are pretty tough to start with. You might start to hear some quiet grinding type noise or hear some new gear whine when letting off the gas. I doubt you'll have any problems though.

 

I sure like that drive train in your car though!

 

You might or might not have overtightened the nut > resulting in too much pinion bearing preload which could lead too overheating. This might also have changed the pinion to ring gear distance and might lead to hauling.

But.... most of the time the specs open up over time leading to problems as well, so you might have just closed it up and be lucky, time will tell.

Your problem is most likely caused by oil sipping between the pinion to yoke splines. I always apply some RTV to the inside of the yoke to prevent this from happening.

 

So far so good. No noises but still seeps a bit of oil. Pretty sure I overtightened. It has some slight rolling resistance on small inclines, where before my car would keep rolling in neutral to a smooth inertia filled stop, now it just rolls and stops abruptly. Not as much freewheel. I noticed this too after tightening the nut, pinion was slightly harder to turn. Well no noises yet but I’ll keep an eye on this perdition experiment. I bet it’s not too late to pull out and set up right with another crush sleeve