uhhhhhh.....yeah 14 bolts DO have shims, not carrier shims but shims under the pinion support. The crush sleeve just serves the purpose of being a spacer between pinion bearings. Once your pinion support is assembled and you have the right pinion preload then thats good to go. But it sounds like you already have that figured out. Your pinion preload is perfect.
more than likely your pinion is too deep, all the 14 bolts I have seen have some amount of pinion shims. In fact I havent seen anything less than a .010" shim under the pinion support. I really would like to see the pattern that you came out with because I bet anything you pinion is far too deep. A gear whine isnt always an indication of a problem,(depending upon severity) some gearsets may whine, and they usually do so only when coasting. Many times your not going to get a perfect "text book" pattern on the drive and coast side. Usually you may have to compromise a little either way with the pattern being as centered from heel to toe and face to flank as much as possible. Did you check your backlash variation around the carrier? I have seen axles that have a massive amount of backlash variation, like .020", the result was a bad carrier. Im not saying your carrier may be bad but these are all things that need to be checked. Make sure you post pics of a good pattern read, not something that is difficult to see where the pattern is hitting. Good luck and let us know what you got.
