Aaron lives on the northwest island of Oahu (Kaneohe, Hawaii). Gear install shops are hard to find here so a call was placed to Marlin crawler and everything, including the hi-pinion carrier, was sent directly to me.

A Detroit EZ locker will go inside the open 4 pinion V6 case.

The springs are measured to make sure they are the proper length and they are.

Step one is to remove the 8 cap bolts...

The case splits very easy.

Take the cross out and remove the spider gears.

...

Install the pins and springs.

Apply some grease to keep the pins in when it's flipped over...

...

Now the spacer...

Install the top half of the case.

...

Torque to 45 ft/lb.

Both surfaces are filed to remove burrs.

I use starter fluid to clean all the oils of the threads to prepare them for Loctite.

Tap the ring gear on and torque the bolts to 75 ft/lb.

Most of the time, the carrier bearings can be tapped on with a hammer.

DANG!! I did it again. Now I have to use the bearing puller to free my finger :(

The bearing slipped on too loosely...sleeve retainer compound fixes this.

I will let it set up over-night and will finish this in the morning.

This Marlin Hi-pinion carrier came with the oil retainer already in it.

Both the inner and outer pinion cups tapped in nicely. I loaded up the pinion with the solid collar and .028" worth of shims.

edit---Best to stay away from all punches/chisels... use an old race to evenly "pat down" the new race. Using a punch could result in "oscillating" pinion preload measurements with the torque wrench. 1-8-2011 ZUK

The pinion had to be pressed out twice before I found the right solid collar shim value(.026).

I was window shopping at a Harborfreight outlet here and thought I'd see how one of these mechanical digital read-out micrometers would work.

I liked it....only 20 bucks.

.080 pinion shim.....drive side...too deep

coast side

Tear down the 3rd...press the bearing off...re-assemble with a 075 shim.

This time I will apply an excess of anti-seize on the threads. This prevents thread damage and makes it easier to get the right CBPL value.

drive....nice.

coast.

Time to crank on the bearings...I opened the backlash up a little from 6 thou as shown on the above pic to 8 thou as shown below. By doing this, the drive and coast might have a better balance relative to each other.

Nice....it pulled the drive pattern in the center....

almost no effect on the coast.

Hi-pinions need all the help they can get as far as getting oil to the outer pinion bearing. This oil slinger helps.

Maybe the rtv is not needed....but it seems to allow the seal to tap on a little easier and it might prevent a slow leak around the perimeter of the seal.

Apply gear oil to prevent a dry start-up.

Plenty of loctite on the clean threads and just as much leverage ;)

...

$122 for the trip to Kaneohe :)

In appreciation, Aaron sent some Kona Coffee....how could I refuse? This stuff is some of the best. Thanks Aaron!

Aaron sent these 2 pic to me a couple of weeks later.

:)