shim material for bearing caps

tigermoth

i was expecting to find steel shim material when i opened up my '35 splasher. instead i found aluminum. is this what they used for bearing cap shims? thank you. regards, tom

Park_W

I've seen only steel and brass.

Geoff

They did indeed use alloy shims, but usually only the very thin ones.

tigermoth

Thanks guys. I though perhaps the softer material may compress over time so I am surprised it was used. Learning something new all the time. Thank you. Tom

Uncle Josh

Aluminum foil is about .0007 in regular gage and .0014 in heavy duty. Works great. And you can cut it with scissors.

tigermoth

.0025" steel cuts easily with a fiskars scissors as well. I have done up to .006" steel too. Regards, Tom

Glowplug

Over the years the materials that "ole time" mechanics used have disappeared. I still have a package of feather shims. You might ask, what “feather shims” are. My package contains a series of metallic sheets that range in thickness of the foil one would use to "leaf" a substrate, to that of thick cooking foil. My mechanic friend would use this graduated set of shims behind bearing shells to set clearance on cranks and rods. The "feather" was thin at one of the edges and thick at other. We used these shims last to bring a used set of Stepdown mains into the correct tolerances. When completed our back yard refresh resulted in a smooth running engine with lots of power and proper oil pressure. Proper use of shims or feather shims seems to be a LOST ART.

tigermoth

Thanks for the post. Never heard of them. Regards, tom