RE: I'm so disappointed with THE QUAKE 8e....
We were out of the 17mm kit's for awhile, but now we have them back in stock. I have no problem sending you one of them (free of charge) with the parts we send you for the gearboxes soon. Would this work for you?
Also, there is no parts shortages per-say that we are aware of. We just ran out of stock on the 17mm kits, and the recent spring of gearbox problems cleaned us out of differential parts. There is definitely nothing to worry about when it comes to parts, as we usually stock everything for our vehicles and we don't usually end up being out of something for more than a week before our supply is replenished.
Regarding the shims (BS903-091), these will only work for the pinion shaft bearings. You will need something with a 12mm inside diameter to act as a shim for the side to side play of the differential. Unfortunately we do not carry any shims of this size yet. Your best bet would be to check with your local hobby shop for something of this nature for the time being if you are looking to shim your gearbox.