I really try to avoid GENUINE Gears but this was an emergency install for a friend, Stace. All we could find locally was Genuine.

Not all Genuine Gears come in Genuine boxes... so here are some of the markings to identify a Genuine piece of ....

The ring and pinion were in plastic bags and soaked in oil.....but surface rust could still be found on the pinion.

The carrier bearing on the ring gear side is truly massive.

This is the coupler responsible for locking things up.....

I filed the Genuine ring gear trying to remove high spots.

....and a shot of the case and my dirty thumb....

Another shot of the massive carrier bearing....

Here, I am removing the pinion bearing. It was still in good shape so to save Stace some funds, we are re-using it.

Micrometers are very accurate and repeatable. This is the old .079" pinion shim and it will be re-used, too.

Now, I know that I will want a total of about .243" for the final shim value using this short pinion head version(79~85 ring gear set). And I don't like the idea of 20 shims...so I've been meaning to try this out....

On the left is the ZUK-fabbed shim or spacer. It measures right at .144" in uniform thickness all the way around. The center piece gets thrown away. This cuts down on the NUMBER of shims...but not the total thickness.

From bottom to top....factory 079 shim....144 Ace shim....and two thin .010 shims to get the desired .243 value.

Re-assemble with no crush and set the nut for a pinion pre-load of about 10 in/lb then carefully load up the case being gentle on the locking fork.....

Even with a large amount of drag created by a crowbar wedging the ring gear the pattern is not as 'strongly' imprinted as I desired. Yet it appears I am right where it wants to be as far as proper depth. Drive side with .243 shim.

coast side .243"

Re-shimmed pinion for .253 to verify pattern correctness.....and it really does appear deep here.

coast side .253"

Re-shimmed for .233 and, as expected, it appears too shallow. Drive side .233".

coast side .233"

So now with the original .243 shim pack in place, it's time to load a new crush sleeve and set the pinion preload for about 6 in/lb (for used bearings).

One more pattern check....from my past experiences with Genuine, I was lucky to get a pattern that even looked this good. Yes, it is favoring the heel more than I like....

Just for comparison, here is a 4 year old pic of a quality US GEAR where I used a "4 cyl" gearset in a V6 member and notice how nicely the pattern is developed and how it favors the toe for strength.

One E-Locker with 488 Genuine gears ready to go back to Stace..... UPDATE::: 3-12-05 Received feedback from Stace that the gears were perfectly quiet.