Just thinking, did the loose nut contribute to the pinion gear slipping back? Tomorrow morning I'm planning on putting the new seal in, slipping the yoke back in place, then the washer and nut. I'll check the pinion gear from the back side for movement etc.
Since I didn't mark the nut and yoke when I removed it, should I go to a certain torque setting? Should I put a drop of thread lock on it? Now I'm nervous about that happening again. This time it'll be me that needs a change of underwear.
Loctite...yes that is a good idea. No...just snug it up and then give it maybe a fifth or fourth a turn more...and then stop. Honestly if I had been in charge of the design, I would have used a castellated nut and a fat cotter pin. As for what caused the little problem, it is hard to unscramble that egg, but something let the gear move rearward while it was spinning. I'd put money on a loose nut and vibration. It would have sounded like a pickaxe caught in a threshing machine. Looking at the thing, you might expect the pinion shouldn't travel that far inward due to the conical shape, but that's not always the case. It is interesting to me the pinion gear wasn't changed after this but it tells me somebody didn't think it was a problem.
