489 pinion bearing install?

port-holio said
ps is it true the factory just looked up the gear ratio, picked the right shim off the chart, and just put them together? Can I really just throw in a 0.015" shim for 3.23 gear, and hope to be close, as claimed in June 2010 CarCraft? I saw a July 2011 Mopar Muscle article about measuring pinion depth, but there aren't any dimensions on my gears.

I don't know about that but I do know they are pretty touchy on setup. By that I mean if they aren't right they'll howl. My factory serv. manual goes through the process of measuring the setup but rarely will you find dimensions on factory gears. It must be referring to installing brand new gears that had the dimension written on the box or in a piece of paper in with the gears??? It also says that on the pinion it'll be marked how much to vary from the measured depth but I take it those marks were done with a grease pen so they probably got washed off.

coming from a heavily Chevy biased magazine (that's why a lot of guys call it Chevy Craft) it wouldn't surprise me if the writer hated Mopars and wrote that to try and make them look stupid. I had a 489 with a 3:23 gear and it had a real thick shim in it. Don't remember the exact thickness but I know it was at least .050". That disproves his saying all 3:23's in a 489 housing take an .013" shim.