Hey everyone.

 Slowly exploring this rabbit hole of off-road building. I have a 1982 SR5 long bed 4wd. Never worked on vehicles until purchasing it. A needed rescue from middle Georgia. From a kid who was abusing his daddy's truck. In fact I had to repeat the five hour round trip twice, after discovering the truck was his daddy's, in order to buy it. Idled as low as 1200rpm, but I didn't know better. So like a naive first animal adoption, I quickly realized I was into more than I thought I was bargoning for.  Took me 4 years to really rise to the challenge. It sat in the garage until recently. In the last two years I rebuilt the drum brakes, carburetor, front knuckles, and put in a new front main seal (You guys who eat these projects for lunch are amazing). All with the help of my father-in-law, Toyota repair manual, and the interweb. The short term goal is regear, lift, paint, and go play. So thank you in advance for the knowledge I am sure to gain in here!

On that note I joined the forum to find a thread stepping through the Yukon ring/pinion project I dove into last week. You don't know what you don't know until you know your stuck. Can someone can direct me to a thread(trouble finding answers to these questions) or help learn me what wisdom I need.

Question 1: does the old pinion height help me in any way?(worth repressing the old races while the old pinion gear still has bearing and shim installed?)
Question 2: is it worth honing the OLD rear bearing,once pulled, to slide on and off the NEW pinion gear while seeking new pinion depth?
Question 3: what portion of the pinion to carrier assembly needs to be installed when measuring pinion height, AND should I use the old crush spacer at this point? (I don't have the SST that the repair manual wants me to utilize)