Question: if the preload is bad, what kind of failure time are we talking about... are we talking about failure in 250 miles, 2500 miles, or 25000 miles? Obviously it depends on how bad it is.... my point is that I don't want to be in the middle of death valley in the fall, coming down lippincott pass and have my rear bearings die... so is there some kind of warning that I should be listening for?
Also, if I were to just bolt up the drive shaft and drive it as is... is that really any different knowing that I don't have the proper tools to fix it anyway? Can I just drive it until I hear the warning signs, then drive out to the pick-a-parts place and grab another rear for 100 bucks?
Thanks for any feedback
When it is on the way out a sign of the pinion is noise while driving,that gets louder when you're coasting. My front was doing it,there would be a sound like dragging a shovel along the ground after the fluid warmed up while coasting,and when it was bad it would shake a bit when you're slowing down. I drove mine quite a while like that because I thought the sound was my exhaust heat shield rattling,and with my mud tyres on I couldn't really hear it unless I was driving by a wall with the window down. All I needed to do was torque up the nut again to put preload on the bearings,but I tightened it until the noise went away rather than tightened it to the correct torque,it's doing well now about 1600k later. If you've gotten rid of the play chances are you've gotten rid of the noise too
I like the locking tool,I ended up using my old rear door hinge with 2 bolts stuck through it.