First all I am doing is replacing bearings. Got the pinion out and found that the passanger side race and bearing were bad (bearing pitted race had melted in 1 place). Question is driver side carrier shim looks as if it has had the race wear a grove in it. there is a total diffrence of .0007 between the metal lost of the shim and the metal lost of the race. Since I am not going to replace ring and pinion I was going to just replce that shim to put the drive side back to factory specs. How does this sound.

 

I am no expert but have messed with a couple. I would suspect if you replaced shim that was worn and did noting but bearings it will be same, but I would still check it. (pre-load and gear pattern) If it is setup improperly it will go south quickly, would not gamble.