pinion angle shims

[Linus Tremaine]

All,
I have a 65 88 that has a salsbury installed. The installation was done using what I suspect are six degree wedges. On my last trip, the U bolts got loose and I sheared my axle locating pin. I am now trying to educate myself on how this wedge works.

The pin I had was pretty damaged but I think I know what it looked like. It was round on the top like an allen bolt. IT was smaller than the hole in the bottom of my axle case so it had a round thick "washer" around it to make the head fit nicely in the hole in the axle case. Is this normal?

My real point of confusion is that I dont understand how the locating pin can tighten against the wedge. The wedge is angled and when the pin is tightened at the bottom, the head of the locating pin tightens unevenly against the wedge. Then, the axle case would sit at the same angle as the wedge but the pin would be straight up and not fit correctly in the axle case. Is there some kind of special locating bolt that I need in association with the pinion angle correcting wedge? I am assuming that I lost something, or that it was never done correctly in the first place.

[blue bomber]

Cut off the welded on pads an weld on new brackets and dial your pinion angle correctly. Check out this link, the "U" brackets are on the bottom the page.

http://www.currieenterprises.com/ces...&text=Brackets

You can buy "center bolts" at NAPA to replace your broken ones.

[Linus Tremaine]

That would eliminate the shims all together. That is a good idea. I know that when the installation was done, the original spring mounts were relocated. I wonder why they were not relocated all the way so that the wedges were not needed....

[aka rover]

Hello

Im not sure im getting what you mean on the washer around the bolt head? but the way the degree shims work is as your discribing them. They get bolted between the axle housing and the spring pack to degree the pinion. In some cases the degree shim has a machined counter sink to correct the the centering pin sitting on the degree wedge at a angle. you could have a machine shop mill out 6 degrees at the bolt head so the center pin sits square to the shim. Im thinking I would pull the other side apart at this point to have a look how it was done and either match it that or repair it as needed.

Cheers Ed