Pickup shims

[wideload]

Saturday night is a lousy time to ferret out a problem, but...
I lowered the action on my Rogue 5 to suit me, but the bridge pickup seemed a little high. When I tried to lower it, the  casing started to crack. Yes, I loosened all the screws. I decided to remove the pickup to see what's up, and found shims glued into the routing. Anyone know if this is normal, or is it a custom feature (maybe added by the original owner)? I'd like to remove at least a couple of the 3.5 shims, because I think I'm overloading the pickup, and it is really close to the strings. Just thought I'd pick a few brains before I take the chainsaw to my Alembic. Thanks!
 
Larry

[xlrogue6]

Those shims are definitely NOT stock.  The Alembic 2 screws above the PU, 2 screws below, diagonally opposed makes shims, foam rubber, etc. unnecessary.  Once you get the hang of how it works, you'll wonder why everyone doesn't mount their pickups this way.  If the crack in the casing seems problematic, some judiciously applied epoxy should do the trick.