almand01

since i cant take it anywhere until tuesday i have been searching alot around the forums and it doesnt seem to be complicated at all to pull the drive shaft out to get to the pinion flange. if i were to do that myself and checked the torque on the pinion nut, and it turned out to be over torqued, would there be a way for me to tell if it did damage to the crush sleeve? would i just have to adjust the torque back to the 8-14 lb-in and see if it was still making noise?

cliffyk

It is vital you understand that what is being measured is NOT the torque to which the nut was tightened--but rather the amount of torque required to turn the pinion shaft after the nut has been tightened.



It should be 8 to 14 lb-in for used bearings. If less than 8 lb-in the pinion nut needs to be tightened a bit more, the re-check the rotational torque and if still too low (I would head for the high end, 14 lb-in in your situation) tighten the nut a bit more.

If the torque required to rotate the pinion is more than 14 lb-in, but not crazy high (say less than 25 lb-in) then you can try backing off the pinion nut. The crush spacer has some resilience and rebound capacity and loosening the pinion nut may work. Try to get the rotating torque down to 14-15 lb-in.

All this ^ is of course just my guesstimates based on experience, having not actually seen, felt or heard your differential.

If the rotational torque is crazy high, 30 lb-in or more, then the crush sleeve spacer will have likely have been compressed too much and backing off the pinion nut will just make things worse; as the spacer will be too short to do its job and will have to be replaced...

almand01

thank you, i definitely understand it better now. i will probably just still take it to the shop and get them to look at it and tell me what torque it is at currently and get them to fix it. this is a video of the noise, it is kind of hard to hear because there is a lot of other back ground noise. it seems to be loudest at about 60-65 mph and only on decel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZRwV...ature=youtu.be

cliffyk

It doesn't sound too bad, hopefully re-adjusting the preload will quiet it down--here is the seal RnR from the shop manual--take it with you to the shop.

They will get pissed from your questioning their expertise, but it is your car...

almand01

ya i have never had any problems or noises from the rear untill after i got the pinion seal replaced so i figured that it could only be a handful of things causing the noise now. im still debating whether or not to do it myself. all i have to do is unbolt the drive shaft and ill be right at the pinion flange right? the other question is that on the manual that you just gave me it says to remove the rear wheels and calipers to prevent drag while adjusting the pre load. is that important or could i do it with them still on there?