Well, tonight I just got done fixing my wife's jeep pinion (rear) and it was a SOB. Mostly because it was all under-vehicle work on jackstands (Dana 35). The pinion bearings didn't give many warning signs of failure (according to my wife...take that for what it's worth) and it pretty much seized up and spun on the pinion. I had to cut the whole front bearing with a plasma to get it out. Pinon was ok though, other than some scoring on the race surface.

Rear pinon bearing (the large one) had some nicks in it too. I guess what I'm saying is it might be worth replacing at some point in the future. You'll have to make a pinion holding jig when you go to tighten the yoke to crush the sleeve (if L/R uses a crush sleeve). That takes +200 ft/lbs on the Jeep. I just delicately used an impact (not a super high power one) and closely watched the lettering on the socket to see how much it was tightening ...and checked the preload periodically. Personally, I think a good mechanic can gauge pretty well the preload by hand and get it within tolerance w/o an inch/lbs wrench. I have one, but if I were to have done it by had and tightened so the pinion movement was firm when hand turning, but not taking any grunt to rotate ...it would be between 22-30 in/lbs. Course yer probably a lot stronger than me...