8-3/4 with no gear oil :(

DrCharles said
I appreciate the offer, but it wouldn't feel right ;) It's not like I'm going to be homeless or hungry, after all.

I am seriously considering just shipping it off to Cass and having him work his magic (again). There are just so many ways I could get it wrong and end up with whiny gears or worse. In 40 years of turning my own wrenches I've never set up a rear... may not be worth learning now.

Sorry to hear this happened, as others have said we've all made a mistake by forgetting something. Yours just happened to be an expensive one. If you haven't set up any gears and don't have the tools to do it you might as well bite the bullet and have a professional cause it ain't easy getting them just right without past experience. Just .002" off on the pinion depth can cause a whine