[gottattooz]

And I can breathe a sigh of relief now. I took the pinion shim out and it centered the contact pattern. I got the back lash within 0.008 with the old bearings. I pressed on the new bearings and got it within 0.005 and the pattern looks perfect. Having never set up a ring and pinion before, I can say with all honesty it's not scary at all. You need an inch/lb torque wrench, a dial indicator and a micrometer. There's a lot of taking it apart, adjust the shims, repeat the process of getting the pinion preload within spec, install the center chunk, set the back lash, paint the gear teeth and check the pattern.

I used royal purple max 75w90. I was all ready to take a road trip, but I was informed that I have to break in the new gear set before any hard acceleration or towing can be done. I looked it up and, sure enough, there's a 100 mile break in period. Drive 15 miles not exceeding 60 mph, let it cool down for 30-60 minutes. Then it suggests changing the gear oil after 500 miles.

I did take it down the road to put gas in it. Using my gps on my phone, the speedometer is off by 20%. 50 mph on the dash is 60 mph on the gps. I'm excited to break in the gear set and get it tuned and find out where kind of mileage I'm getting.

-Josh