Update: Some progress has been made, even the face of problems.
Thursday (9/15) our oldest daughter died suddenly. She was only 47. Her health was not great but still it was a deep stab in the heart.
Sunday (9/18) I resumed working on the beast to occupy my mind, and made some progress. The pinion seal has been here for a week or more so it felt good to get it installed. It's the correct seal this time. Need to order the correct and new pinion shaft nut as this one jams up and will not crush the spacer. It's almost home, just a tiny bit of play on the pinion yoke end.
Good news is that installing the 0.006" shim under the pinion gear did the trick. Reinstalled the carrier assembly with the original spacers and the gear lash is 0.006". After adding 0.008" shim of carrier bearing preload on the ring gear side, gear lash was reduced to 0.003. I'm completely happy with that.
Progressed further by installing the half shafts and both of those went in nicely. However, I ran into a very embarrassing problem. Turns out 3 months ago I installed the lower ball joint on the driver's side upside down !!
I wonder what I was thinking !! ...or smoking !! I did not take a picture of that because I wanted everyone to have a hazy mental image instead of a clear real image.
Pulling that new ball joint out and reinstalling it correcty consumed the next 3 hours. The problems were my ball joint press is not exactly the right one, although it gets the job done. Secondly, I removed the silicone grease boot on the lower ball joint to remove the ball joint, and reinstalling the boot was a great deal of joy. Working 8" off the ground upside down was a real treat. Finally figured out how to manipulate the key-ring style boot retainer and got the little beast on.
Progressed still further by installing the wheel hubs, which look i-stinking-dentical on the outside. Driver's side went on nicely but the anti-lock brake wheel-speed sensor would not go in. Looked at it many times but that didn't help. Finally noticed that the right-side speed sensor is cylindrical and the left-side is square. I'll take some pictures later. I didn't notice anything on the outside of the wheel hubs, but there is clearly a right-side hub and a left-side hub.
Attempted to put the left-side hub on the left side but is binds before getting fully seated on the axle shaft spindle & spline. Full daylight was gone by now and the dim light of dusk was gaining on my. Put away my tools and called it a day.
An evening beer tasted real good.
Dean.