Rob is fairly local to me and lives on the far west side of town. About 9 months ago, I installed an Aussie locker in his 1983 3rd member. Back then, both Rob and I had looked at the original carrier bearings and determined that they seemed ok to re-use so we did. The locker has been working great but a whistle recently started coming from the rear diff and has been getting louder. I placed the 3rd in my fixture and measured the backlash at a very very wide .040" which is over 4 times the spec...this has resulted in the whistle during acceleration and quietness during de-acceleration.
Before dis-assembling it, out of curiousity, I turned the adjusters to re-establish the original .008" backlash and ran a pattern check and it seemed ok.....but after some discussion, it was decided to install new Motive 529 gears along with the new bearings.

This is the Motive master install kit.

So, upon dis-assembly, we noticed (hard not to) that the carrier bearing on the ring gear side was totally destroyed.

Rob never heard any rumbles from the carrier bearings...just the whistle from the improper gear mesh from excessive BL. The carrier bearing on the other side does not have this damage and looks fairly normal.

The other bearing that tends to wear the most is the small outer pinion bearing. This is a shot of the outer race and some pitting can be seen. The much bigger inner pinion bearing usually fairs much better but it also was showing the same pitting action.

Not shown in this pic is how the destroyed carrier bearing on the ring side just fell off of the case journal. The case journal was so damaged from "spun damage" from a loose fitting bearing that I determined that the case was now junk and I then had to swap the Aussie over to one of the many good used cases that I have collected in recent years.

Rob stayed in my very warm garage while I was doing this install (close to 100 degrees now) and learned alot about the finer points of a good gear install. Rob even got involved in some of the work.

Rob is pressing the new bearing on with the .0745" shim. This is the new 529 Motive ring and pinion.

The pinion is installed without a solid collar or crush sleeve for our preliminary pattern checks. Rob checks the rolling pre-load and sees a nice 14 inch/pounds.

I get to tighten the adjusters and establish about .008 backlash....then I paint a few of the teeth and turn the ring back and forth with a 17mm wrench to develope an easy to read pattern.

It's running shallow and also favors the heel too much.

Favors the toe end too much....

...so we take it all apart again to add some more pinion shim. Rob presses the bearing off and is ready for the pinion to drop out.

Much better....now the drive side has the correct depth and favors the toe quite a bit. I can add more backlash to move it off the toe end which I might do.

Coast looks good and has moved close to center.

It was getting extra hot in the shop at this point so less pics were being taken. The solid collar was now installed and, as the pic shows, the new seal is packed with grease and RTV and then installed.

Date code the new Motive ring and done. The lesson to be learned here...probably best to use new bearings when things are "disturbed" in any way...especially if new pre-loads are added in. ZUK