Hey all, I am building a 10 bolt for my '88 IROC. I bought a used set of 3.42:1 gears off of ebay-Used. The pinion is not marked and my buddy who is setting up the rear wants me to buy a new gear set rather than going through the trouble of effin' with it. Any easy way around this?????

-Mike

 

Get an extra inner pinion bearing and have the inside honed or machined out so that it slides freely on the pinion without being pressed on or off. The shims to set the pinion depth are installed behind the bearing. You can use this bearing to easily change the shims until the proper setting is found. Remove the setup bearing and press on a new inner bearing onto the shims.

 

Do what Stephen 87 IROC said, buy an extra bearing and hone it out. It's just trial and error. We did mine, in about 6-7 tries(would be less if it wasnt for stupid mistakes). Not too bad though. Just takes a little patience, a dial indicator and some gear marking compound. Sometimes you can tell right away, without marking the gear, that its not right(too much play, or not enough) Try bumping up the shims in about .004-.010" at a time(.010-.015" if you drastically change ratios), then work your way from there.

I don't know if this is true or not but it seems if you go to a steeper gear you need more shimming, if you go higher you need less.

Buying new gears would be the easy way out, but it all depends on if you have the money, or want to try to set them up yourself.