pinion nut torque

I installed a new pinion yoke on the 8.25 a while back and did not measure the rotating torque beforehand. I installed the new yoke and torqued it to spec but not rotating spec. Long story short I've been trying to shake down vibrations and have just installed 6* shims for my 4.5 inch lift. That put my diff about 1.5* down and took away all my vibes except between 1200 and 1500 in final drive somewhere between 42 and 50 miles an hour. Then they go away after 50.

I just installed outer bearings in the 8.25 and put fresh fluid in it. Everything seemed fine til I sealed it back up and the rear wheels have side to side play in them. So my thoughts are that I messed up the install of the pinoin yoke, wore out my diff side gears which fell out on the first pinion yoke install, and my pinion bearings are bad as well. Any thought as to if this would cause my specific vibration?

I need to just drive on the front shaft to see if things clear up but i'm pretty sure i need front ujoints in the d30. Plus I sent my driveshafts front and rear back to tom woods to be rebuilt only to have them sent back to me and the rear shaft ujoint has play in it at the double cardan. I had bad vibes with that shaft in, i pulled it put in the front shaft where the rear should go and all the vibes went away except where noted above.
any help would be great!

Sounds like the rear driveshaft has issues. Fix that first. Check for any radial play (up and down) in the rear pinion. There should be no play at all. The force required to rotate the rear pinion should be slight (you really have to have the carrier out to get a good feel for this). If there is no resistance then the pinion is too loose. The 8.25 uses a crush sleeve and you have to torque it to a very high torque (the exact number is not set because it doesn't really matter, the idea is to achieve the right amount of pinion pre-load). If you never applied enough pinion preload and you haven't driven it too much then you can probably increase the pinion preload by tightening the pinion nut until there is some resistance to rotating the pinion. The rear axles will have a small amount of play in and out (about 1/8" or less) but if they have alot of play then you might have an issue with the carrier bearings. If that were the case though the rear would be making all sorts of bad sounds.

The rear shaft is on its way back for a recheck. There is no play in the pinion yoke. I've driven it quite a bit, probably 5k miles. The doesnt seem to bad, I've been trying to measure it but just haven't had cash for the dial indicator. I've replaced so many things on the Jeep recently it's staggering. Everything has been torqued to spec except the pinon nut becuase I just didn't read the dang manual not to mention how hard it is to get that nut tight.

I think I'm at least working in the right direction becuase I've driven 50k miles on it with 2* shims and vibes. Then got add a leafs for the ome 3" and went to 6* and finally at least have the pinion angle set correctly. I must have tore my 8.25 up in the process. And if I need to rebuild the center diff I'm just gonna try to find a d44.

I'm still trying to shake this out and hopefully I have a clue. It only vibes when it shifts into overdrive. If I drop the trans into 3 it is smooth as silk, no vibes. Something in the trans? Transfer case? Both pinions on the trans case seem like they have 0 play.

Another thing I noticed was that I get a loud pop when I have my foot on the brake and shift back and forth in reverse. Sorry for the double post, just racking my brain on this one.