rear axle pinion bearings advice needed

Tear down the axle, being careful to mark the differential bearing caps. They must go on exactly the way they came off.
Get the pinion out and strip it down, paying special attention to the shims between the gear and inner (big) bearing.....Mine only had one shim. The inner bearing is pressed on so be very careful removing it. Try to keep the bearing numbers intact so you can get new ones. There is also a crush sleeve on there, which I shimmed and re-used.....you could also just buy shims and replace the sleeve all together. I'm not sure if you can get a sleeve all by itself. Either way, the new bearings must have some preload on them, which I believe is around 20 inch pounds of rotational force.
Put your new big bearing in the oven, your pinion gear in the freezer. 250 degrees should suffice. Once they've heated and cooled a while you can literally drop the bearing onto the pinion.

I've left out a ton of details, but I assure you that this job is not as difficult as it seems. Do some research, Google, YouTube, etc. Most of all, take your time!

casperfast said:

there's some good Info. as for the rotational pre-load of 20in isn't that measured at the wheel stud or measured at the driveline flange? I located the section in the service manual about this. also you said you reshimmed the crush Steve. what do you mean?

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I crushed it a little more by adding .060 worth of shim to the mix. I don't recommend this method, but it has worked fine for me over the past 4 years. I highly suggest you either replace your sleeve with a new one or find some shims to replace it all together.
Considering the axle is based off the Dana 44 I'm thinking you could possibly find individual parts like that sleeve somewhere online.
The nut backing off is common, but is a sure sign that someone has been tinkering. You should be able to get that from Nissan.

I can't watch your video right now, but I'll get to it in the morning. Good luck!

The rotational preload measurements are done at the pinion nut with just the pinion and then the pinion and diff carrier combined. If you are re-using the carrier bearings you will not be putting any more than 5 inch pounds of preload on them.