willysmjeeps.com

While waiting for the engine to come back from the machine shop I've been busy cleaning up and overhauling my transmission and transfer case. During the rebuild on the transfer case last night.......a Spicer Dana18 case.......when I got to the step where you setup the end play of the output shaft by stacking shims under the rear bearing cap....I followed the instructions that came with the Novak Master Kit and drove the rear cup in toward the rear cone until the cone just started to engage the race.......of course I had already installed the front bearing and front bearing cap with an untreated gasket.......then holding the rear bearing cap inplace on the rear race I used a feeler gauge to measure the gap between the case and the cap. It measured .091........Novak says to add .010 to this amount to create your initial shim stack......so I needed a stack of .101. Well.....using all the new shims provided by Novak and my old shims (two of which were the .031 variety) I was just able to achieve this much. Is this a "normal" starting point? Seems like a hugh shim stack to me especially if this is close to where I end up and I have to treat all of the shims with sealer. Anyway......has anyone else had experience with this and how much of a shim stack did you end up with? My dial indicator arrives Tuesday so I'll know fur shure if I'm in the ball park Tuesday night. For now I'm just more curious then anything. Thanks.

Jim

yes this normal gap. I have seen some less and some more. The dial indicator will give you exact end play. I set mine between .006-.010, this will give proper quiet operation. Be sure to install a gasket behind output seals front and rear.

Thanks for the reply........I got to thinking more about what I was doing and I realized if I had tapped that race one more time with my handy dandy brass hammer my initial shim stack would have been grossly reduced and I would have been in that .06 to .07 range......at least this way I know I haven't already pressed the race in too far. Naturally, as soon as I saw the gap I had I figured something had to be wrong....like a snap ring not in place or maybe a thrust washer that was too thick.....but after looking a lot closer its pretty obvious all these things are correct.....I just whimped out on driving the new rear race into the case. Just have to wait patiently now for the dial indicator........right.......not with all these bolts that need to be wire wheeled.

Jim