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Transmission Shimming

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I'm in the process of shimming my transmission. For my intermediate shaft outer bearing my crushed solder measures .0376 (in).
Spec range is .0031 - .0051 (in)

Do I just add my measurement to the medium spec range and shim it to that?
No. You use whatever thickness gets you to the preload or endplay spec. The range merely states you should be using a shim somewhere in that range. If you measure outside that range you have a problem or you may have measured incorrectly.
If the spec is flat, no preload or endplay you would select a shim of exactly .037.
If it's. 002 endplay you would select .035.
If it's. 002 preload you would select .039.
These are just examples. Consult your factory manual for endplay or preload specs for each component.
Somebody may chime in for changes. Heavily modified cars, some users change the specs from oem. I do not for my car and I'm under 350hp.
 
Kinda waiting on Tim to jump in.
I have the old old rebuild book (not the training manual listed above) and I have a hand correction I wrote in where the book seems to be wrong.
The book I have has at least up to 95 in it and some of the pages are marked TSB revision. There is a conflict between the spec pages and the page where it shows how to do the solder measure.
The input shaft says end play in the instructions and preload in the spec listings at the front of the rebuild guide. My year specific 96 and 97 books both list end play in the specs and the pages for instruction.
Every trans I have ever built I used end play on the input shaft per these instructions. These are Chrysler Talon books if it matters. Factory manuals. I couldn't tell you why the rebuild manual says this and given that it's not an early printing (given the 95 specs in it)
I'm surprised to see this. I don't recall if I've ever seen a TSB sheet for trans shimming.
 
The more I think about it these are tapered bearings. Why on earth would there be an end play spec?
If memory serves the input shaft had roller bearings at one time. Maybe very early cars??
 
Tim says the input shaft needs preload regardless of what the FSM says, which is how I shimmed it, on the lighter end of the range he gave. Trans has been running fine but I've only put a few hundred miles on it since.

The OP would do best to search this site for Tim's many past postings on this matter. They have everything he needs to know and then some.

As for getting shims, I understand that Tim still has all of them and has been known to sell them as a special order since it's not on his retail site. You can also get some of them through US dealers, but not all. Or you can order them from Japan.
 
The more I think about it these are tapered bearings. Why on earth would there be an end play spec?
If memory serves the input shaft had roller bearings at one time. Maybe very early cars??
Tapered bearings use preload while roller bearings use end play. My 99 Mitsu FSM has an error. It says end play for the F5M33 input shaft when it should say preload (it's a tapered bearing).
 
Tapered bearings use preload while roller bearings use end play. My 99 Mitsu FSM has an error. It says end play for the F5M33 input shaft when it should say preload (it's a tapered bearing).
It seems like all the FSMs have this "error", so perhaps it wasn't an error so much as bad advice? Surely they would have caught it eventually otherwise.
 
Perhaps, we'll never know as they never correct their manuals for the public. It isn't the only thing I've found incorrect in their manuals. Example (in my 99 Mitsu FSM): Spacers listed for both "F5M31 and F5M33" for both "Intermediate shaft and output shaft" say it's for adjustment of end play. Yet under the "Spacers Selection" specs it says those shafts use preload.
 
Oh, I've come across lots of errors, factual, spelling, grammatical, formatting. It can't be helped in something this big and complex spanning multiple versions of the same vehicle across generations and versions. Plus having used the FSMs of other, very different cars, they seem to use a lot of common elements and perhaps don't adapt them properly for each car. And then there's the language and cultural issue since this is basically a Japanese platform with some US input. Still, you'd think they'd have a process for finding and correcting errors with each successive version. But it's probably quite an undertaking to change even minor things in these. In any case enthusiast communities both online and in real life tend to fill these gaps.
 
Exactly. You stated it perfectly.

And of course once it's wrong in any factory manual, it's now wrong in the millions of aftermarket manuals out there that use the factory manual as a base (not to mention the millions of factory manuals themselves that are already out there).

Thank goodness for DSMTuners that people can ask questions to.
 
Exactly. You stated it perfectly.

And of course once it's wrong in any factory manual, it's now wrong in the millions of aftermarket manuals out there that use the factory manual as a base (not to mention the millions of factory manuals themselves that are already out there).

Thank goodness for DSMTuners that people can ask questions to.
What bugs me is they do release TSBs for manual errors. All we need is a searchable list of TSBs. Hmm....seems to me I've been assembling trans with wrong specs for some time.
 
What bugs me is they do release TSBs for manual errors. All we need is a searchable list of TSBs. Hmm....seems to me I've been assembling trans with wrong specs for some time.
Meaning you went with FSM shim values instead of Tim's?
 
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