Calling all my axle people
The pic above is the 3.55 axle currently in the truck (since I never took any of the one in question) which replaced my old 4.10 8.8 posi for a number of reasons including milage, completely burnt out clutch disks and, most importantly for this post, axle play, lash and a lovely 'my diff is full of loose nuts and bolts' sound. From now on I'm only talking about the old axle.
I pulled the cover and it looks about the same with no visible debris so I have hope the slop will either be an easy bearing, or the worn clutch pack creating a slight gap that a replacement will fix.
Watching some YouTube it seems like quite the job to fully revamp and shops are wayyy out of my budget, but I'm fairly mechanically inclined, having done some serious work including an auto to manual swap and mustang brake conversion. It's the numbers and specs that scare me most since there are so many things to shim and measure but it's not in the truck so I can take my time, tho I'd like to put in as little effort as possible to get it back under the truck in decent condition.
What do y'all think I should do? Is a clutch pack likely to fix all my problems or do I need a full year down? Thanks in advance folks, I'm off to do more research while waiting for yall