After that, I pounded out the pinion gear.
View attachment 359466
And then the real fun began. The pinion gear bearing races were a nightmare to get out. I finally got them, but it took WAY more pounding and was WAY more difficult than YouTube led me to expect. And then getting them back in...I finally got the front one in and seated. Then rear one is still only halfway in, but I had to come in for the night. The temperature dropped at least 50 degrees here today while I was working and it was getting cold. Also, it was getting late and I'm pretty sure my neighbors didnt want to hear any more hammering tonight. I think in the morning I'm going to try taking it back off, and putting it in the freezer for a while, and get it real good and cold. Maybe then itll go in easier. Thoughts? Here is the darned rear pinion bearing race once I fianlly got it out:
View attachment 359467
The other issue that I had was that I COULD NOT get the rear bearing off the old pinion. I have a press and bearing separator, and it actually bent the bearing seperator, but the bearing did not budge. Its not that big of a deal since I am putting in new gears and not reusing the old pinion or bearing, except that I was hoping to use it as a setup bearing to get the pinion depth set. So, I spent quite a bit of time with a caliper measuring the old pinion gear vs the new one, and the old bearing vs the new one, and trying to calculate the shims needed for the new bearing. Once I figured that out I pressed the new bearing onto the new pinion. Hopefully I get lucky with the depth because I am worried about getting the bearing off to adjust shims since I couldn't get it off the old pinion. I also pressed on the carrier bearings onto the new carrier, and got the ring gear torqued to the carrier. I should have all day tomorrow to work on it, so hopefully I can make more progress. Ideally it'll be done tomorrow, but this isnt an ideal world so...it probably won't be. I'll try to take more pictures tomorrow. I was supposed to have help today, but it didnt materialize, so my picture taking suffered.