Pinion preload was at 25 in-lbs. I'm gonna have to warm up to shimming the pinion as right now I feel like pushing the car off a cliff lol. The timing of all this sucks as it's just starting to get down near freezing temps at night and the sun is almost set by 6:00 pm.
I hammered the races in pretty hard (with the proper driver tool of course) and ran my fingernail around the undersides to check for any gaps on the seating surface and they felt like they were in all the way. I just remember back when I did a R&P swap in my Jeep years ago it whined pretty badly and I took it to a shop but it turned out all they needed to do was torque down the pinion nut as it either backed off or the races weren't fully seated, ran perfectly after that but I probably won't be as lucky this time.
I guess today after work I'll run and pick up a torque wrench that can go past 250 lb-ft and check the pinion nut although at this point it sounds like that's not likely the problem (I wish). When I had the pumpkin on my "bench" (folding plastic table with a metal drip pan on top) I torqued the pinion to 150 lb-ft using a yoke-holding tool then carefully zapped it with my 1/2-inch Milwaukee impact until the nut didn't seem to turn anymore.
I'm definitely not doing any diff/ring+pinion work again until I have a big steel workbench, fixture to hold the 3rd member and bigger garage with decent lighting. Working on cars in general is pretty friggin awful if you don't have a comfortable workspace.
