3rd gen Tacoma rear diff leaking at the pinion seal

Hi All,
Had an issue with my tacoma recently it started to leak from the pinion seal. I had driven it from big bear where temps reached 20 degrees at night and had issues with the e brake freezing and locking one of my rear tires. But getting back to the leak, the diff was regeared to 5.29 and it has the solid spacer in it. When changing the pinion seal can i just remove the large nut and swap the seal without worrying about the backlash? Or should i count how many turns it takes to remove the nut? I am thinking the one way relief valve got gummed up and didnt allow the pressure to release?. I cleaned the valve and ran air through it to make sure it works now.

 

With a crush sleeve eliminator you should just be able to torque the nut to like 200 ft lbs or so afterward and be fine. Regardless, what you do won’t affect backlash, it would affect the pinion bearing preload. But with the solid collar it’s not really a concern.

Use a new OEM seal and grab a new pinion nut while you’re at it. 90311-T0065 & 90179-A0002 for the 8.75” diff you have.

 

Sweet thx