Differential shim anomaly...

[deathpunkbaby]

trying to sort out the rear pinion depth on a HJ60 w full floating posi trac rear end. ordered another set of shims thinking I had the wrong size in the kit. Instead, somebody has shimmed the pinion with a different style of smaller shim that sits under the bearing between the pinion shaft and the inner race/bearing cage assembly. The proper shim, I’m told, sits under the outer bearing race between it and the diff housing. WTF? The other complication is that all the shims in the kit don’t add up to the abnormal shim that is in it now. All I’ve done is replace bearings and was trying to add a few 001’s in depth to see if it improved my contact. Can I just keep the wonky shim and add a another under the outer race? Don’t know why it wouldn’t work, just wanted to see if anyone else had this “challenge” lol

 

[deathpunkbaby]

i checked out gear installs.com page and found he uses the smaller diameter shim. i'll see if the local bearing shop has any.

 

[Spike Strip]

This is how Zuk at Gear installs did my ARB locker in a FF

ARB RD33 landcruiser

 

[deathpunkbaby]

yea, and he (zuk) refers to the small diameter shim as the "factory" shim too. specter off road only knew of the larger dia outer race shims, and the dealership, well they were no help at all. that guy zuk is a saint for posting his work, very thorough. a huge help.

 

[Spike Strip]

It's been about 8 years but I think those smaller shims came in the bearing kit I got from Just Differentials

 

[Kleatus]

So I recently regeared my '62, using a donor 80 rear third for the back, and rebuilding my old rear for the front (to mimimize downtime.)

What I found out was that the kits I bought for the FJ62 third and the FJZ80 third (both Nitro FWIW) had different shims. The FJ62 master kit only had the larger diameter shims that fit under the inner pinion bearing race (in the 3rd member housing). The FJZ80 kit had both shims that went under that race, and shims that went on the pinion shaft under the bearing like factory (and more of each of them). I'm not sure why this is. I can only assume they think people would prefer to shim under the race as you don't have to press the pinion bearing off every time to change shims when setting up the gears.

I'm still not happy with just differentials / nitro for never getting back to me when their carrier bearings didn't fit...

 

[Prairie Swamp]

The solid spacer that JD sold me for my 62 front came with a nice assortment of the pinion shaft sized shims...but as we've discussed the solid spacer was too long. It shouldn't be this hard.

I'm no expert but I don't see anyone shimming under the race but I suppose it would work. Obviously too much shim there and you lose support for the race side wall but that would have to be extreme.

 

[roma042987]

That shim is factory. The last seven or eight diffs I’ve done all had that shim.