Richmond Pro gear alert heads-up...

[Tod Lane]

Originally Posted by Paul Merolla

Good info, Tod - I wish I had heard of them before I did my 12-bolt. What about their "Smart Sleeve?" They say duty cycle is better than a spacer and shims. http://www.ratechmfg.com/smart%20sleeve.htm
That would eliminate the idea of honing a bearing.
As a side note, I bought used gears when I was putting the car together. When I went to press the pinion bearing on, it just slid over by hand. Turns out the previous owner's setup guy takes a little off all his pinions to make setup easier. A few people predicted disaster at the time, but after 60 or so runs this year the oil came out clean and the pattern looks great.

We pretty much use the smart sleeve and pitch the regular crush sleeves or shim and spacers in most applications. MUCH easier to set preload than the old style crush sleeve.

Alot of their stuff is made there in cincy and pricing is good.

[HandOverFist]

I may try the "Smart Sleeve" of Ratech's on the next gearset...supposedly more stable with less than half of the normal torque values.