I installed my Lockright into the carrier, and am just waiting on the delivery of my solid pinion spacer to put it all back together. My question is this - when checking the pinion bearing preload is the entire carrier supposed to be re-installed into the case, or no? I know that when we rebuild Mercruiser outdrives (I'm a marine tech) there are separate preload figures for just the pinion, and for the entire outdrive (total preload of the whole assembly). The service manual seems to show the carrier installed, but pics I've seen on ZUK's site seem to show him setting up pinion preload before the carrier goes in... anyone?

 

Pinion pre-load is set with the carrier out. I always use solid collars so I set my pinion pre-load with no pinion seal either but with a crush sleeve you would need to have the seal installed. Keep in mind that when Toyota set up all these values for the diff they had 28" tires in mind which is why most of the settings now a days exceed what Toyota recommends.

 

Thanks, that's what I thought, but I was thrown of a little when I went to check the pinion preload during disassembly. I took the carrier out, and when I measured the pinion preload there wasn't any! There really wasn't any preload on the carrier bearings either. The backlash seemed pretty good (9.5 thou), so I figure with a solid pinion spacer, the correct pinion bearing preload, and 150lb/ft on the carrier adjusters, (after the match marks made before disassembly) I should be good to go...

 

I noticed after a ton of reading on Zuk's site that 150 is usually with new bearings and used seem to get 75-100 ft/lb's. Would make more sense to me to use 75-100 on used as any break in period for them is long since over. After you get BL set and CBPL set tighten the caps up to spec as you would for final assembly then give the bearing caps a good hard whack with a fairly heavy "precision adjustment tool" to see if the BL changes. If it changes after the whack correct it and repeat the process after a few whacks you will find that nothing moves any more and thats when I locktite the cap bolts one at a time and put it back together.