Rear Caliper Shim, GM Part vs Custom?

I have the infamous rear brake squeak on turns. On the advice of a webpage, I ordered two GM shims, p/n 26034667. I just heard, however, that the entire axle has to come out to install this shim. That was not how I understood it before. Is this true?? Alternatives ?

Yes, I'm afraid this is true. The shim has to go between the caliper mount and the axle housing.

What are my other options?

If I have to remove my axle to do this, and I'm not about to do this myself, how many hours of labor am I looking at? If it were just a shim behind the caliper I would've done it but this is more serious.

I had the same problem last week when I swapped rearends. I just put a washer on each of the bolts between the bracket and the housing. It worked well so far and no need to remove the axle.

Any specific washer thickness?

I was wondering... if you used a shear and cut the shim in the middle, then you could take out the bolts and slip the shim in without having to remove the axle. Does this sound feasible?
Seems like I heard of other people having used starter shims as well (I think that was it :D ).

Well its just an overgrown washer or spacer right? I ordered 2 GM shims, maybe I'll try cutting them.

Did cutting the shim to put it on work?

Hal

Thought I would raise this thread from the dead and echo Hal.... Did cutting the shim to put it on work?

Nice awakening, I have the same problem, but I figured it was winey gears on the slow turns. So where are you guys putting washers and shims? When I did my rear brakes this week I did notice some in and out play in the axle, is that the symptom? Good thread.

-Dustin-

Yeah, I have my car sitting on jack-stands at home waiting for pad change tomorrow morning, so it would be cool to find out this info. Lord knows, I had a heck of alot of squeaking coming from the rear brakes.

As I recall I never ended up using the shims. I got new rear brake pads and rotors and it cleared it up. I guess the rotors had a bit of runout.

Cutting the shim in half would have worked though, however after another 2 1/2 years of experience working on this car, pulling the axle is easy as pie, so if I had to do it again, I'd just do it that way.

Take off the diff cover, rotate the LSD so you can remove the little retainer bolt, push in axle, remove c clip, slide axle out. Viola.

Don't forget, a lot of times the whine you hear is the limited slip clutch disks "slipping." It is normal and it is only doing its job.

I know this is an old thread, but didn't want to start a new one.

I also have this squeaking noise when making a left turn.
The noise goes away when I apply the brake.
Funny thing is, I never had this problem until I took the car to the dealer, which was 3 years ago, because the car started making a grinding noise in the rear.
I thought it was a major problem and really hadn't worked on my car that much yet and didn't feel confident enough to do the work myself.
They quoted me about $1000.00 for the work which included a transmission and rear differential overhaul.
I agreed for them to fix it.
What really aggravated me was that after the repairs had been made they said, "Oh, by the way, the quote I gave you was for only one axle.", so, I ended up paying them $1400.00 for this work.
After the repairs were made everything seemed fine at first, the car had 112000 miles on it and I decided to part it.
Now three years later the car has 117000 miles on it, the rear end squeaks when making a left turn and to make matters worse the transmission is leaking.
I did however, install new rotors and brake pads in hopes that this would fix the squeaking which it didn't.

I guess I have 2 options here; I can try and install a shim in hopes that will fix the squeak; I can order some aftermarket axles and try replacing them in hope that the dealer really didn't know what they were doing.

And obviously I'll have to fix the transmission leak.

Sorry for the long post. Just thought I would share.

And I will be doing all work on my car from now on. Was an expensive lesson to learn.

After the repairs were made everything seemed fine at first, the car had 112000 miles on it and I decided to part it.



Oops... What I meant to say was, "I decided to park it."

Also, I noticed that after the repairs, that the dealer had made, there was an excessive amount of gear wine that wasn't present before, between 50-70 mph.

I guess, I'm hoping that some of you guys can give me some kind of direction, before I start tearing the rear end apart.

I thought about taking the car back to the dealer, but I doubt they will honor they're work from 3 years ago.

Thanks alot for looking.