The re gear to 5.29s went ok. The rear was a learning experience, I was suprised to find the 80 series e locker is set up with side bearing shims, not adjuster nuts. For the pinion I just transferred the master shim and the depth was great. This thread was super helpful to figure out the side shims:
Re-gearing E-locker rear differential
The side shims in my third are .1157 and .1169, I was able to swap them to tighten up the backlash to .009, a little loose but as good as can be without different shims. I’ve heard a couple thousand extra in harsh use is ok cause more oil is between the teeth to cushion the shock load. I’m telling my self that makes .009 ok!!
The front should have been easier, I was supprised to find a pinion with the pre load spacer machined in to the pinion and pre load shims rather than a crush sleeve. Good thing I collect junk and had a bunch of shims and a crush sleeve left over from previous re gears. I ended up using shims between the bearing and gear rather than under the race like this was OEM, partly because I had smaller shims and partly because changing the shims won’t affect the preload. It took 2 tries to get a depth I was ok with, I also had to clearance the housing just a little on each side for the thicker ring gear. Backlash ended up at .007 after torquing the caps down. Pinion pre load was 10 in lb before the seal.
Since the axle shafts need to come out up front to pull the third I took the opportunity to install the RCV 300m shafts I bought a few months ago. I was plesently suprised to find them already pre loaded with RCV synthetic moly grease. WINNING. I also put the included cromo hub gears in the hubs.
The not so fun part of the re assembly was stripping off a trail gear super hub stud. Oops. I had one spare so that was an easy fix. Then I stripped off a trail gear spindle stud. FML. 2 hours later and one messed up hub seal (lucky I’m a parts hoarder) I drilled out that stripped stud and tapped to m12 course thread. It ain’t pretty but it will hold just fine. I gotta say I’m not super pumped about TG studs today.
I put the front tires on swapped left to right then took it for a test drive and diff break in. The tire swap was on the advice of a bud with 36” bias iroks who says he can only run them in certain positions or he gets wobble. It worked, death wobble is gone!!
Here’s a pic of the completed hillbilly fender flares, made out of rubber converyor belting. At 100 kph the engine is at 3000rpm with the 5:29s axle gears; the trans, t case and black box at 1:1. I’m pretty happy with how everything has turned out. It weighs 4200 lbs without me in it. Next up is a dyno tuning session at DM Tuning.
Braved the -20C temps today to shake it down. The only issue was the vss sensor speedo adapter wasn’t quite set in the split case. Motor sounds and runs great. The th400 is working good. The torque converter is right where I was hoping, it’s tight enough to move it along nicely at 1500 rpm but the actual brake stall is 2200rpm. The LS2 really starts to pull at 3000 rpm. 
