Honestly, to clean that crap off I just used WD40 and a couple rags. Worked great, cheap, and very little scrubbing was required. I'm not sure about the carbon build up. I imagine you'd need something that's a little "hungrier" for crap.

I never even knew you could shim the ball. Just got lucky I guess.

The worst part about doing tranny work is getting the damn thing realigned. Maybe it's just me but I've NEVER had luck getting it to align in the first 20 mins of fiddling with it.

Keep the progress up Mike! I'm hoping to see it on the road just once since I got those tires off of you Perhaps a meet of some sort?!