If you worked on it all day you could have pulled the axles and pulled the carrier and then you could stick the axles in it to see whats happening.You could measure the carrier depth and mark how far axles going in and check if its bottoming.I had to do this before and realized i had to remove the thrust block. When the carriers out you can see if the splines are lined up.Only costs the price of a gasket or gasket maker.