gears and how i messed mine up

ok,
so i bought a ford 9" from a 1976 f-150 and am in the process of swaping it in...

right now i still have 235/75's so the stock 3.50 gears in the carrier was a good deal (i have 3.07's right now)

we noticed a leaky pinion seal when ripping into the axle - so i decided to change that out about 2 weeks ago

i tested the initial bearing pre-load and ended up with about 1 in/lb
that was scary...
pulled the yoke bolt off with a HAND ratchet - about 40 ft/lbs there...

i took the yoke off and visualy inspected the bearings - they looked fine...
the yoke seal surface had some huge gouges in it, but i didnt have the cash for a new seal, and plan to re-gear this summer anyway and dont mind re-filling the diff occasionaly...

so when we put the yoke back on, we torqued the nut till 160 ft/lbs then started measuring pre-load

we stoped torquing when the pre-load was about 10 in/lbs (which i later read in a different book that used gearsets use 6-8 in/lbs...

anyway, i detected some interesting amount of slop later on in the project in the backlash - so i borrowed a buddy's dial caliper and checked the backlash...

turns out i have .019" backlash...
spec (acording to a book that i have) says for used gearsets - should be between .01 and .015

how fawked am I?
also - i think what happened was when i re-torqued teh pinion, i might have pulled the pinion depth out a little, and that could have caused this slop?

this yoke was obivously removed and replaced by someone with little expierence (it was a farm truck)...

any advice?

I didnt run the pattern, because i didnt have any compound, but the wear in the teeth (from before it moved to the parts yard) looks to be what everony says is right-ish...

If no teeth are busted or scored then you're probably ok. Too much bearing preload is not good, they will self destruct. Make sure to lightly tap the yoke with a brass hammer or like, to help the races and bearings settle in before measuring preload. Double check your BL. You should run pattern to see where things are at. If the pattern is wacked the you will have to shimmy stuff around to get it right. I've seen gearsets run slightly excessive BL and survive as long as the contact is acceptable.

FUNKYTEE5