Pinion Markings

[Pineyguy]

I'm putting a locker in the rear axle of my truck. When I pulled the differential out, I noticed there were some markings on the pinion gear, just wondered if anybody knew what they meant. It looks like they were hand engraved.



I'm not too swift at picture taking, but the engravings are: "+3" at the top, "K" on the left hand side, "0" on the right, and "217" on the bottom.

[glockrock]

when using pinion depth gauge . This mean you add .003 to feeler gauge reading to set proper pinion depth. The inner bearing shim set up. If -3 you would reduce shim thicken by .003.

[Pineyguy]

Cool, thanks. I figured it had to do either with manufacturing the gear or setting it up. I've never done anything more than change out oil in axles before.