Front pinion nut issues with solid spacer

[DownByTheRiver]

Had a harrop e locker and new ring/pinion put together by a local guy about 1500 miles ago. The pinion seal ended up leaking and when I replaced it tonight, I noticed the more torque I put on it (1/2" 20v dewalt), the harder the wheels were to spin, as in I can't spin the front by the flange like I can in the rear, at all. The diff is really hard to get turning unless I spin both wheels the same direction. If this is a solid spacer, what's going on? I should be able to crank the hell out of it, right? Should I try to set it to the crush sleeve torque and see how it feels?

 

[MechE30]

Yeah you’re basically just jamming the bearings into their races with all that torque. Solid spacer isn’t a free pass to torque it to the heavens, it’s mainly to keep from needing to disassemble the entire diff for seal replacements and less deflection of the pinion into the spacer in high load conditions. I believe the proper procedure is to adjust your pinion torque until you hit the right running torque of your assembly.

 

[MechE30]

Read Zuk’s “gearinstalls.com” for examples

 

[sodafeld1]

I happen to be teaching myself diffs and if indeed it is a solid spacer ( I reckon some would secretly put in a crush for speed, so much faster to install) you cannot just torque the hell out of it. But it is a fair bit of torque, on the ones I am working on it is minimum 180ftpounds more than the 150ftpounds same vehicle of the engine's crank nut.
If you have the time and tools, it maybe worth pulling it and having a look. But it needs the correct preload and it needs the correct torque, or you will be looking at early failure of a seal, bearing or both, or worse. Was the nut staked?
Gearinstalls is ace. Diffs are fiddly as and expensive.