CNY_Dave

I'll say that if this valve is in an 'easy to reach' (as if) location maybe check it in 10 or 20k... What range of shims is available for purchase? It would be alarming if the ideal shim for you was thinner than the thinnest available.

You forgot 'floor it!'

If the bearings have play between the races and the balls/rollers, either it is worn to death or the axle nut isn't tight and the inner races aren't touching each other. The inner races must be a tight fit on the axle stub. If it is all tight and the inner races aren't 'spinning true', something was really messed up...

You have VDC, but there's no switch? I heard pulling the ABS fuse was the easiest way to disable the VDC system- can gen2 VDC (before '04 anyway) cut the fuel injectors?

The shims are designed to rotate, the cam doesn't hit them right in the middle. They may not be perfectly flat on both sides, and if you did grind down the 'flat' side you might not get it flat enough. You could sand down the low 'flat' part of the cam lobe... (forget I said that) If it is hardened, as you suggest if you ground down the bucket side the hardening is probably not important on that side.

Looks like it's a big disk shim, at least that's harder to lose. Hmmm, how rough? My idle isn't all that great. Actually there's a vacuum-gauge test for this, isn't there?

So these are shim-over-bucket... So maybe you could take a bit off the bucket part that pushes against the valve stem- not sure how you'd do it though...

Both inner races ride on the hub, any play is fatal, hub fits tight over the axle stub, any play is fatal... but do you mean either of those cases?

Which 'gas' is out of spec- one indicating too rich or incomplete combustion? Poorly operating converter? Standard Q on age of plugs, wires, is PCV system operating properly, do the injectors leak down, has cleaning the injectors been tried (perhaps some of the serious stuff that connects in place of the fuel line), You could always try the acetone trick, too...

What type of 'play' do you mean?

Something iffy is making that valve different, either the stem is stretching or the seat is receding or maybe the shim isn't seated properly under the bucket... when you adjust the clearance it will be interesting to see just how much lack-of-slack there is. For grins, do a leakdown on that cyl while you have the engine out?

If it isn't the bolt-in type bearing what happened was the bearing came apart when you pulled the hub out of it. The new bearing just looks like a big cylinder, yes? That is what has to come out of the knuckle. Remove the dust seal and C-clip before trying to make anything move...

If it won't seal, it'll leak exhaust, but it won't get as hot as an exhaust valve (unless the valve or seat erodes). One tight valve out of all of 'em, are you sure you're not catching an unworn portion of the bucket?\ What is spec, and what is your smallest gauge?

If you end up with a bad but fixable housing, I'm short one...

If the bearings do not have noticeable play (rocking, for-aft, etc) and spin without vibration or notching, probably good.

The VDC case and guts I got from our best source of info on that stuff (still missing) had a very worn set of bearings (13 and 15) and shim 17 was trashed. The rear of the case looked ok. Mine needs 13 and 15 replaced plus maybe the very front bearing. I shipped the rear of the case off to the guy that had a cracked case, maybe that case is repairable (and maybe he still has it) and you can get it from him if yours is trashed. I know on non-VTD setups the shim size sets the 'preload' on the MPT, I don't know if the VTD setup sets the preload or just has to keep it all from rattling around. If the rear bearing is toast, the output shaft bushing may be as well, in the tailhousing just in front of the rear seal.

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If it has play or binds/gets hot, I consider it a safety hazard. I drove my '03 on a noisy rear wheel bearing long enough for it to have barely detectable play (could feel the rear starting to want to wander before it was detectable shaking the wheel), and I needed ear plugs to drive at highway speeds for weeks before it reached that point.

Manual I see by the edit... unless you are running mismatched tires or tires with different amounts of wear and fixing that makes the problem stop, the trans rear housing needs to be removed and the and the viscous clutch needs to be replaced. (not sure if this is part of the center diff or available by itself). If you need to live with it for awhile, try to not turn tight. The VC is a sealed unit, so no hope of magic goo helping.

Drum rears? Maybe the rears are out of adjustment. Just a wild guess though...

If they disconnected the battery, that wipes the transmission learning. My H6 gets harsh shifts and a nasty jolt on the 4-3 kickdown after awhile, disconnect the battery and all is good again.

Small leak somewhere?

I can't see how someone who looks at those things for a living could miss seeing it missing. I have to imagine the seal fell off while maneuvering the tail section back on. Of course then they had to have ignored seeing it on the floor.

bank 2 lean- driver's side or passengers? Popped up on the test drive after spending all day replacing the rear steel brake lines. I see that code mentioned a lot, almost never see the resolution. Haven't seen one yet searching through the posts here, need to dig deeper. Have just recently run a bottle of techron through it, 2 separate tankfulls a few tanks apart. Only symptom it has had (for a long time) is a brief hesitation giving it some gas pulling away from a stop. New plugs in a few weeks ago.

They have a paper element and a screen section, some of the fluid going through gets filtered 'fer reals' but the screen section is necessary because the filter is on the output side of a control circuit, or the output of the converter (forget which).