I fell into this money pit 63 K-10, everything is either seriously worn out, rusted out or broken. After reconditioning the body and gathering most of the parts, I am now going back together. Right now I am putting the rear suspension back in after torching the pins, replacing 3 top leaves on both side springs and spending a small fortune on new spring eye pins, bushings, lock pins and shackles etc.. Anyway, the ring and pinion are shot, so I bought a new set, all new bearings and the Richmond Install kit. The questions is: When checking pinion depth, What is the proper way to temporarily install the pinion until you get the correct number of shims installed? Do you have to use the new crush collar and apply the correct torque setting on the pinion nut to get an accurate measurement? It seems to me one would be taking a chance ruining the new crush collar? However, I imagine you have to go through this process to preload the bearing to get an accurate depth measurement? Anyone do alot of these? Got some tricks? I have a strong 454 and 400 turbo in this truck, so I'd like to do this right.x(
The trick I was looking for is to take the old pinion bearing and hone it with a brake hone for a "slip-fit".
