Sooooooo I didn't mark the pinion nut when I took it off.  How silly of me.

Now I'm reassembling and I see the torque specs for the pinion nut is 137-159 ft-lb.  Great!  So I torqued it to that and the preload when spinning the companion flange didn't change.  I believe it's supposed to be 6.8 to 10.8lb and I've got about 2.5lb.  So I torqued it some more.  Preload didn't change.

I saw in another post on hybridz: https://forums.hybridz.org/topic/129225-r200-pinion-flange-nut-torque/

"That "put it back where it was" suggestion is a bad one even for a diff that has a crush sleeve. The R200 has no crush sleeve. The spec is RFT, I want to say it's something like 150 - 200 ft lbs. I always use red loctite on the nut the put my impact on 5 and hit it, empty the compressor until it fills, then hit it again. Never had any issues."

Can anyone give any further details on what I should do next?  Did I just create a boat anchor by over tightening the pinion nut?

 

Why did you remove the pinion nut?  Might guide your path forward.  They're whiny even with everything just right.  Probably won't be able to tell.  It's not going to destroy it just make it noisy.

Nissan has several areas where they give two specs. and they probably cannot both be met at times.  Like in wheel bearings they spec. both end play and rotation resistance/preload but don't tell how to adjust if the resistance is not met.

They do the same here.  A torque value and a preload but how do you adjust one without affecting the other.  It's nonsense. 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 20204 yr by Zed Head

Here's Nissan's procedure for the rear wheel bearing.  At those torque values things are probably deflecting and maybe affecting end play.  But what does a person do if they can't hit both numbers/ranges?  The preload is an exact number also.

 

10 hours ago, Zed Head said:

Why did you remove the pinion nut?  Might guide your path forward.  They're whiny even with everything just right.  Probably won't be able to tell.  It's not going to destroy it just make it noisy.

Nissan has several areas where they give two specs. and they probably cannot both be met at times.  Like in wheel bearings they spec. both end play and rotation resistance/preload but don't tell how to adjust if the resistance is not met.

They do the same here.  A torque value and a preload but how do you adjust one without affecting the other.  It's nonsense. 

 

 

 

 

I was replacing the front seal of the diff.

It's real damn tight now and also has red loctite so the nut isn't going anywhere.  This diff is coming out of a parts car so I don't even know what it would have sounded like before.

You could check the wipe pattern.  If it's the same you're probably fine.  If it's off, it might howl.

If it howls, it howls.  It's installed.  I'm gonna howl with joy from driving it again.

Running and driving, no howling of the diff yet.  That's not to say it won't, but it just hasn't yet.

Just seeing this thread. No howl, look like you nailed it.

Pre load is done by shimming between the to pinion shaft bearings. What ever torque you put on that nu won't, or shouldn't change that.

Changing the seal shouldn't effect the patern anyway. When you start changing bearings and stuff, that is when you run into trouble.