[Smoove1010]

I got myself a digital caliper with depth gauge last night - probably not the best quality one available, but choices are limited when you go to local retailers. I took measurements of arbitrary things with it, and found that it was repeatable, and since I was looking for distances of objects that were relative to each other, I felt that it would do the job.

I used a carpenter's square after holding the edge down against my granite counter, and it was flat all the way across - no daylight. If nothing else, I proved that my square and my counter were both equally straight, or equally warped.

I measured the depth to the IMS and the right and left gears. Bentley's diagram on this was most helpful to me as it lists the expected delta between the measurements. I took the IMS depth, added the delta for each side, and created a range for each that took into account the .5mm margin for error.

The tough part was getting repeatable measurements to these points, holding the square in position with one hand while holding the caliper squarely against it, and sliding the moving part of the caliper with the other. After some practice, I got a range of measurements for each reference point that were within +/- .3mm - I used the IMS measurement that was in the middle of that range as my reference point.

After doing the simple math, I was satisfied that the left and right were within spec, so having 3 shims on the right was intentional, whether done at the factory or by another wrench.

This killed a solid hour of my evening Porsche-time, but it was an hour well-spent. One less thing to worry about when getting ready to hit the ignition key...

GK