Riceinator

Hi guys,
I am in the process of building a rear end for my car. I took the old stuff out and I am a little confused. I thought the carrier shims would be multiple plates, but upon removal I did not see many shims. All that I saw was the bearing races and the single plates. Is this the shim I have on top of the race(see attached pic)? Please excuse me if this is a dumb question.

Thanks.

turbosha

has the rearend ever been into? i mean.... if the tooth pattern is good and backlash is good. who cares how many shims were in there.

Riceinator

I don't know, I just picked up the rear end, and know nothing about it. Everything is getting replaced. I'm not too concerned how many shims are in there, I am just wondering if the piece in my pic is the shim. I was just expecting the shims to look like a series of plates like this:

turbosha

yup its def a shim.my rear had a big one on one side also

Riceinator

ok thanks.

mjr46

the one you have picture are factory shims, if you are installing new gears in the process and expecially if they are of a different ratio, you may or may not use the factory shims, with some ford racing gears you can get away with reusing the factory shims as long as the correct pinion shim is used

Riceinator

I am replacing the gears of a different ratio and am upgrading the carrier to a ford racing 31 spline unit, so more than likely I will be using different sized shims right?

mjr46

more than likely but install them anyway as a place to start and run the pattern and check backlash, you may end up in the ballpark where you need to be

Riceinator

Awesome, thanks for the help guys. I'm looking forward for these parts to show up so I can tackle this job.

turbosha

good luck, my very first swap was some 3.90 gears and they had a whine. o well....