[Ironangel]

Neveruse wheel bearing grease on pinion bearings, carrier bearings, or full floating axle bearings...All the manuals warn against it's use in those areas. Wheel bearing grease is formulated with a microscopic fibrous binding material that does not break down and mix with gear lube. The GM 12T uses the ring gear to sling oil/lube into the large opening at the front top of the housing. Both bearings are exposed inside that opening receiving cool lube that exits through the small lower drain hole below. The smallest amount of grease can and will dramatically change your preload readings as 12 inch pounds is only 1 foot pound. A lose preload is as deadly to a differential as to much preload will cause excessive wear, heat, and premature failure. Your housing looks good and I'm glad to hear your waiting for a wrench big enough to tighten that nut in small increments. What are you holding the pinion yoke with? Allstar makes a reasonably priced tool that allows you to easily take your inch pound preload readings without having to remove the tool from the yoke. Thats a trick my $200 Kent-Moore wrench wont do. Heres a link for the tool, https://www.jegs.com/i/Allstar-Perfo...SABEgJuP_D_BwE And heres the bad news I see in your pic. If thats a clicker inch pound torque wrench in the pic, you really should be using a dial read type or the beam type. The clickers wont give accurate reads of rotating resistance in motion. The beam type are ok especially if they have a memory pin to mark the resistance. I suppose a digital read will work although I've neve used one, just in case thats a digital unit in that little black bag...Good luck, lookin good!