Can't remember detecting any play on mine that I've opened on couple of occasions. Maybe because I put a good amount of grease on the splines hence I don't detect anything. If you rotate the shaft while connected to gearbox or bevel box end you'll feel gearbox's gear tooth- or bevelboxes tooth slack respectively, even if you "lock up" the gearbox or bevel box it's still there since the last gear always has the heat expansion tolerance between it's tooth, which is normal and supposed to be there. So it's not the shaft's spline-induced slack you feel if you measure it in this way.
While open also check the U-joints, usually the rear U-joint has "rougher" movement than the front, but if there's nothing extreme it'll be fine.
Margus
|