[NeoJuice]

My buddy left and over the next couple days I got the tires on and down off the crib blocks to do some further testing. I have a tandem garage (two cars on one side) so there was plenty of room to do some brake checks.

Fired up the truck and let it idle for a bit to warm up. Popped it into drive and gave it some gas and tested the brakes. They felt real good. Went in/out of the garage down onto the drive way multiple times doing everything from soft to hard braking and everything felt pretty good. The pedal didn't feel spungy and the vacuum pump appeared to be doing it's job.

So......I decided to be a little adventurous (even though the wife was home) and figured I would take it up the block and road test the brakes and bit and come back. Its a quiet street, so I started doing some break tests at 10-20km/hr and the brakes felt good. Did some hard/soft braking and I was happy. As I was puttering up the block about 1.5 blocks from home now I was getting ready turn around soon. So I gave it a little gas and "BANG,CRASH" I slammed on the brakes and shut off the truck. I got out and looked under the truck and my drive shaft was on the ground & still attached to the rear end.

My first thought was WTF just happened? I look at the rear diff and its pointed to the ground basically. I continue to utter many many cuss words that this just happened. I'm 1.5 blocks from home as well remember. So I put my four way blinkers on and proceed to try and figure out what to do next. I figure I'm going to need some sockets to get the c-clamps off the u-joint and a jack to try move the diff back into place. When the diff dropped it also wrecked all four bolts but luckly the u-joints appear to be ok and the drive shaft doesn't appear to have any damage. Also lucky my brake lines didn't rip off or wreck my e-brake. You can see the brake lines twisted in the pictures. I'll have to check the e-brake as well after resetting the pinion angle.

Upon initial inspection looking at the rear diff I thought the rear diff had spun. It did indeed spin so I thought that the U bolts weren't tightened down enough. My neighbor came along in his 65 mustang and got out and took a look and even he couldn't believe his eyes. He said the perch's weren't welded to the rear end. It even had me stumped why this wasn't done and even something that I should have even needed to check.

The PO had the entire frame sand blasted and powder coating so it didn't make sense to me why they weren't welded. The diff is out of a 1980 transAM and the old perches were probably removed for the difference in width and the TCI rear leaf kit. The truck didn't have a drive shaft it in when I bought it so the PO probably thought he would do it later on. But why sand blast and powder coat everything then have to sand it off and weld it later. Doesn't make much sense to me.

So with the help of my neighbor and my father we pushed the truck back home and into the garage. My wife was not impressed to say the least when she found out I took the truck out. Since this happened last Sunday or the previous Sunday the truck hasn't moved and I'm not sure how I'm going to reset the pinion angle. I thought I was going to get on the road this summer but I'm not sure now. Might just have to pack it up and wait until next year.

Thoughts?