Not again? :confused: :eek:. :( he is a good conributor here on the forum, has a lot of knowledge.
Sometimes not a lot of tact or people skills which rub some people the wrong way. Just thined skined:P.

Oh well. Richard maybe I just misread what he was saying. I know to use the same shims on their proper side of the Diff.

I was reading that what he was saying is to swap them between Differentials.

I think they are sized to take up the space between the axle end, and where they butt up against the inside of the Diff. depending how the Diff is set up inside with shims and preload.

Charlie

shims should go with the differential. on mine they were the same from left to right but completely different for each diff, but I would check them side to side to make sure they are the same.

aha!
 

found it.
so, the 'donor' diff says 3.46 and the 'current' diff that's on my '85 wagon says 3.07.
i don't believe i have the shims for the donor...as he just gave the the differential itself, nothing mounted to the car.
does it sound like a bad idea swap anyway, for a 70% highway driver?

also, how do you know when an axle shaft's bad?

I wonder if its any different than when a CV joint starts to click on FRNT wheel drive cars?

any noises besides the Diff. Humm?

That isn't the swap you want to do for better highway RPMs and mpg.

If you HAD the 3.46 installed and were talking about swapping IN the 3.07 then you'd be going in the right direction...

With a 3.07 in there if you want to get even lower highway RPMs and mileage, you have to go to the 2.88 ratio - from the 85 300 series IIRC, or one of the 2.47 ratio rear ends from a gasser.

You can get the same effect as the 2.88 ratio by increasing your tire size by about 6%-7%. For example going from 195/70/14 tires to 225/75/14 tires is about a 6.5% increase in diameter.

You can't get the same effect as going from 3.07 to 2.47 with bigger tires though. That is a nearly 25% increase and you can't go to tires THAT much bigger - that would take a 315/80/14 - basically a truck tire that wouldn't even come close to fitting.

Now, if you want to make it a smokin' 0-60 machine, go ahead and swap in that 3.46 diff...