Setting up a ford 8.8 center section

[fasterpatrick]

Anyone who has worked on the aluminum IRS center section. Does this look like it will work to set up the gears.

Also if I'm only swapping in a trac-loc and new bearings, not changing gears can I be safe to assume that the pinion depth should be the same, and just use the same thickness shim with the new bearing?
Patrick

[blykins]

That will work just fine as a spreader.

As for reusing old gears, just go ahead and reuse the original shims. However, with the new bearings, make sure you check everything including backlash and paint the gears to check the mesh. Also, set pinion preload for new bearings. I would use a solid pinion spacer instead of a crush sleeve, that way you could just set the pinion preload with the spacer shims instead of jacking around with a crush sleeve.