Jim Malcolm

150 ft-lbs was off the top of my head, and therefore most likely wrong...

It's my understanding that properly installing a "crush sleeve eliminator" requires careful measurement with an in-lb torque wrench, which to me would necessitate the pinion being vertical, and therefore the axle out of the vehicle, so that the tool doesn't affect the measurement. Plus more room to swing the tool around. Certainly plenty of benefits to a "crush sleeve eliminator" if done properly. Ebay shows a couple kits for the 8.25, but I haven't gone any further to see what else is out there.

EvanM

Id assume you can trial and error get it same as a crush sleeve. Your setting the rotating resistance to like 12inch lbs. Doesnt much matter what the nuts tourged to if you have this rotating . Verify all specs you need to hit and learn what your doing.

Tourquing a crush sleeve without checking rotating resistance would be wrong in my opion. Id work my way up to rotating spec since you can not uncrush a crush sleeve.

Tripple check pinion races are all fully seated before all this happens. Ask me why i know this.

With a crush sleeve eliminator its going to do the same but will set it with shims. Again pinion nut tourqe wouldnt be super critical. Since youl have the same rotating resistance at 150lb nut tourque and 300.

What the crush sleeve is to fill this gap easily and quickly same as the shims.
Shims are better because crush sleeves can be crushed more during high load situations then the **** goes all out of wack.

Shims cant be crushed under load

Theres alot to know setting up gears. My first 8.25 gear set turned into chunks of molten metal. I did suck it up and now have thousands of miles on my 2nd attempt

I did regear my axles with them in my rig still.
strapping the axle on a bench would save tons of crawling around bumping my head.

Good luck have fun with it and dont be afraid to fail learning from those failures. Failing is only truly a fail if you learn nothing from it giving up.