Sorry but I think all three patterns are too deep.
You guys are misleading him. when the pattern is cutoff down in the root then you need to remove shims. Pull the pinion back out of the pattern. from the last pic I would pull it out at least .010" from the pic. You must be up around .050" of shim under the pinion?
You need to torque wrenches when doing gears. a 1/4" drive 0-50inlb bar type and a 1/2" drive10-250ftlb click type is best.
backlash in the teens? Nope that would be pinion bearing preload. In fact Pinion bearing preload has only a small amount of impact on the initial setup pattern. You do not need to torque the pinion nut down to 200lbft. in fact you don't even need the pinion preload shims when doing your initial setup. Preloading the bearings is meant to limit the amount of defflection in the gears when under heavy loads. To much preload will overheat the bearings while to little will allow the gears to deflect and move under load.
I'm not even going to address the "backlash opening up" bit. It needs to be within spec and the bearings need to be pressed on very tightly. 10tons will seat the shims and properly preloading the carrier bearings will keep the BL tight.
But I digress, I don't know anything because I don't preload the axles before checking the pattern!
