ok im in the process of gearing my 60, the guy i got it off of had already removed the pinin races and the depth shims. the shims got lost and i have the pinion that is a "+1". what im asking is, what is the pinion depth zero? i know that a +1 is one thou. deeper than zero but what is zero?
Pinion depth -- the fore-aft position of the gear teeth on the pinion relative to the ring gear. Because the ring gear is always centered with respect to the axle shafts and the center of the axle housing, the pinion depth is set by moving the pinion shaft fore or aft with shims placed between the rear pinion bearing and the housing. Each differential type (e.g., Dana 60) has a nominal pinion depth measured from the center axis of the ring gear to the top of the pinion head. For the D60 this is 3.125". However each ring and pinion gear set is different, so there is no such thing as an absolute pinion depth. Each ring and pinion gear set will have numbers engraved on the top of the pinion head. One is a + or - number giving the best pinion depth to be added in thousands of an inch to the nominal value for the differential type. For example a D60 pinion head inscribed with + 3 would indicate an ideal pinion depth of 3.128".
