I was talking to a old hot rod friend of mine and I told him im about to pull my rear and rebuild it. Well I got talking with him and he said he just put the gears in using old shims and the measurements turn out the same. is the true i always thought even torquing down the pinion or changing to a soild spacer would throw everything off? any comments?

 

When I did 3.73's in my car last year, the factory shims put the gears right within the range they had to be for pinion depth and backlash...........no real changes required!

.......however, they were an extremely "whiny" set of Richmond's, so they came out and the 2.73's went back in.