Necessity being the mother of invention....

[RealMcCoy]

So what do you do when the transmission preload shims you need are in BFE, and you needed the trans assembled yesterday..? I'll let the pics tell the story... Gotta admit, I was kinda proud of myself for that one.... LOL

[AdamVR4]

Damn, that's a thick shim! When I wrestled this problem in the past, I tried buying (already very thin) shims from McMaster and trimming them or shaving them. Even a magnetic base surface grinder basically chewed up and spit out the shim. I ended up paying a premium to get factory (presumably used?) shims.

[AdamVR4]

(From 3SX)

For some reason, trying to edit a post from my phone always deletes the post.

[stealthee]

I've heard of people using aluminum pop cans to fashion shims.

[RealMcCoy]

Damn, that's a thick shim! When I wrestled this problem in the past, I tried buying (already very thin) shims from McMaster and trimming them or shaving them. Even a magnetic base surface grinder basically chewed up and spit out the shim. I ended up paying a premium to get factory (presumably used?) shims.

That one was only .015". I needed .050", and only had a .035", and a .040". Differential shim on an F5W33...

[AdamVR4]

That's really only 15 mils? Looks way thicker than a few sheets of paper but it must be the angle or in my head Well done!