[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by kodyo

You don't have to remove the pinion nut to take the diff out. If you were to undo the pinion nut, you would have goofed up because the torque on that nut is crucial to setting the bearing preload via the crush washer and it's kind of a pain to reset.
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Thanks for the explanation, I'll give that a go tomorrow.

Yeah I was hoping we would not have to remove the pinion nut or change the preload on it, as we're just replacing the diff and not replacing the pinion gear or ring gear (existing ring gear will be swapped onto the new diff). Is that right, or will we still need to change the preload on the pinion once the new diff is in? I'll measure the torque on it at the moment and check it once the new diff is in to be sure, but in theory will we probably be ok with leaving the pinion alone?

All of the guides I can find seem to assume you are taking the pinion out as well, so I'm just trying to understand exactly which bits we need to do when we're only replacing the diff and not changing final drive. I'm assuming we will still need to get some different size shims for each side of the diff where the axles and bearings sit, but hoping to avoid doing anything with shims on the pinion end.