Originally Posted by Campag4life

Dezellis,
Thanks for the pics. Your opinion please. Pls see the pic below I put lines on. These appear to be shims which match up with machined grooves shown inside the FS barrel per the other pic you show with guts removed.

A comment is...perhaps they shims are 'sized' in terms of thickess to create a certain preload based upon the tolerance of interfacing parts...the shock stroking up and down against these shims creating some side load by design to mitigate rattle or vibration. With wear..or with fractional mis-sizing from the factory, it maybe possible this preload is diminished contributing to a potential rattle. What do you think?

See below and thanks again.