Tapered Dana 44 axle shaft question

When reassembling my rear drivers side brake last night, the axle shaft would not go in far enough to allow the bearing/race to go in completely:

Do the drivers side and p-s shafts touch against each other in some way? I jacked the p-s wheel up and it had a bit of end-play that was not there when I reassembled the p-s brake.

 

do you have a powerlock or an open differential?

a powerlock has 2 small spacers that are held together by a roll pin which sits directly in between the 2 axle shafts.

an open differential has something there too, but i can't exactly remember what it is. i've only rebuilt a tapered axle with a powerlock, never with an open unit. sorry.

the powerlock also has 2 sets of splines to engage. maybe your axle is only engaging the first set only? that is if you have a powerlock....