I would appreciate those with more knowledge looking at these patterns on 4.88's in a 01 Tacoma non ELD rear. I never thought to check the thickness of the factory pinion spacer. I did not add anything to it.

Pinion PL 12+ lbs, no spacer
Backlash 0.010 If I swap the ring and case side shims it drops to 0.004 which is too tight, correct? Could I add some pinion shim to tighten it up or would I risk pushing the pattern too deep?

Thanks in advance!

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Coast:

 

I sent the pics above to ECGS. They thought pinion was too deep so I took out the stock pinion spacer and threw in all the shims that were sent with the install kit. That totaled to about .072 down from stock at .081. I swapped the ring and case side shims and ended up with BL about 0.0075.

New pattern
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Coast:


Same setup, pattern in a different spot
Drive:


Coast:

 

might check a few pattern's on Zuk's site: http://gearinstalls.com/
for comparison

 

I've spent quite a bit of time on that site.

 

Your 1st set of patterns at the beginning looked great.

 

Thanks Zuk. And thanks for all the info you've posted on your site.

I went back to my original pinion depth but had to leave town for a week so I'll get back to it this weekend. I was able to tighten backlash to 0.007 and get the solid spacer shimmed to get pinion preload to 12 or so. i will post some new pics this weekend.

 

This is where I ended up going back to the stock spacer (0.811) and getting backlash to 0.007. It seems a little deeper than what I had originally.

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Coast: