Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Appears the drive-shaft is bottoming out, may need to be shortened.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Chap I think you mentioned you did your rear end already, did you have any issues with the drive shaft, or is your pawertrain not in yet?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

so quick update so you won't think Rusty and I fell off the face of the earth, well after seeing my entire family get sick, you know how that goes, it was my turn to get Bronchitis, so today is day 7 of feeling miserable, missed the entire week off of work

not bragging just letting you know that as you make Restoration Plans, those plans might could change for various reasons, I'm just keeping it real, stuff happens

the good news is LMC Truck confirmed they got my returned McGauphys front coil springs and will be refunding me $150 bucks! can't wait I'm thinking reinvesting in BellTech Nitro shock kit all the way around before that money burns a hole in my pocket

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I did not have that kind of difficulty with my driveline. The only difficulty I had was finding the correct u joint. During my teardown, I ditched the original u joint so I had nothing to compare it to. I had to take measurements. After the O'Reilly's person went through 3 pages of u joints we gave up and I called a local driveline specialist. In his southern voice he said, "You need a Precision 372." That solved my problem.

Can you get some movement out of your rear shackles once the truck is on the ground?



I can understand being in my area of the country and getting the crud but how do you get bronchitis is California? :waah:

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Alright Bonchitis you took three weeks of my life and that's all you're going to get! I don't care if I aint 100% I need to get back out there into the arena, [ahem] garage.

So its been a while, so I will remind you where we are at. We need to remove the drive shaft and separate the two pieces to see why it won't telescope in and out, cause in its current state / position it's about 1/2 inch too long to mount up to the differential.

So here we go. First we remove the dust shield thingie, which was a bear since it probably wasn't removed in 40 years, but we got it off.

Then we removed the drive shaft off of the truck cause it would be easier to work on it off the vehicle.

Re: Restoring Rusty - Separation Anxiety
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

well show us how it works bro

we start off my cutting the angle iron into four even pieces

then we assembly the separator like so

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

now you aint gonna set any world land speed records with this thing, but its safe not dangerous to use, its cheap, and eventually it gets the job done

we turn the nuts two half turns at a time on the four long studs, so go Stud 1 two turns Stud 2 two turns, Stud 1 two turns Stud 2 two turns, do that about 10 times then flip the drive shaft over and Stud 3 two turns Stud 4 two turns Stud 3 two turns Stud 4 two turns, we do that so the shaft don't bind and slowly we see progress ie splines, and then Victory! Victory! we have separation

I think it maybe took half and hour to do it, shoot better than taking it in for service and paying moneys

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Well I am going to say that your driveshaft was in all the way meaning that if its too long you'll need to shorten it or see if you can somehow move your axle back.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

can I just cut off 1/2 an inch from the spline end?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

LOL I sure ain't no expert on that! So I will let others chime in. :lol:

But it looks like its hit the end of the splines itself which means its all the way in its receiving end.

Could be a good time to check how long a 1 piece would be required and swap it out for that.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Cutting down the splines really wont get you too far.
A driveshaft shop can shorten the rear shaft and balance both pieces as a unit. I'd farm that out. It's not expensive.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Agreed. I used to do them, oh, forty-five years ago, when I worked in a machine shop. It's no big deal.

As for cutting those hardened splines, without taking the heat treat out of them? Good luck with that.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

planning on taking the drive shaft in to a shop on Monday to have it shortened, thanks all for your help and advice, looks like I need about 3/4 of play in the yoke so I need to figure out how much to shorten that second rear shorter shaft

I have seen directions on how to measure the one piece drive shafts but haven't found anything on measuring a two piece with a center support bearing

Also my front shaft ends with the splines not the yoke, so I really don't know how to measure the length of the short shaft that comes after it as the yoke is in that rear one

I think I will just install the front one on the vehicle than slide the rear one in and out (now that it slides freely) and determine how much to take out of it that way, not gonna allow this to become Rocket Surgery, ha ha

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Is it possible you could get a one piece driveshaft from a donor truck? I know my 76s driveshaft is a one piece. Also it's a short bed. Just wondering. I have no idea. Just thought if you got one out of the junkyard it might would work. Either way your doing good. Keep on keeping.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

not sure how that would work or what type of one piece driveshaft I would need since my Muncie SM465 has a fixed yoke, it's bolted in and it does not slide in and out

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Fixed yoke is fine as you can get a slip joint on the driveshaft and then everything just bolts up.

At least in theory this works in my head.

But in all honesty just get the driveshaft shortened and your good to go.. Too much overthinking.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

That's the plan for tomorrow, stay tuned.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Just FYI, a driveline from a 70s 4x4 suburban would probably work (one piece) but would probably also need shortened. With one piece drivelines with a fixed rear yoke like yours, they just put the slip in the driveline itself.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Basically like these,

http://www.showcargarage.com/gallery...ivelines02.jpg

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

hey but thank you so much for the explanation and the picture, you know what they say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so 1,000 thanks to you my friend, I really appreciate it

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Like the guys that take a cutoff tool to the tail-shaft on the NV4500 to mount an NP205 because the Adapter kit isn't properly engineered.
Makes me cringe every time I see that.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Took the driveshaft in to DRIVE LINE SERVICE of Sacramento and Jim saw the problem in about 2 minutes.

He walked over to a shelf and picked up a brand new spline end, took it out of the box and inserted it into my old drive shaft, then he said: This should go in at least an inch more, it seems like something is blocking it, maybe there is something in there.

For Reference: He could only get the new spline end to go as far as the grease fitting and not an inch or so past it as it should. I had the same results with my old spline end.


Then he sent me home to take a measurement from the center holes of the center bearing support bracket to the tip end of the yoke in the differential.

Which I did and report 32 3/4 inches.

He will see what it takes to fix my shaft, he thinks once it is working as it should there may be no need to shorten it. I also asked him to replace the center bearing with the rubber doughnut.

More as the news develops...

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Wondering if you have a metric ton of dirt and old grease stuck inside. Grease can become extremely hard and cause issues like that.

If you have something that will cut through old grease well fill the hole and let it sit.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

got the fixed (not shortened) drive shaft back today, if you look closely at the before and after pictures you can see that once all the whatever was cleaned out of it it actually goes in about an inch more now, see how much closer to the center bearing it is now, it used to be about 1 1/2 away now its like 3/8 away

also had the center bearing replaced which included the new rubber doughnut - out the door for just shy of $80 bucks

plan on installing it either tomorrow after work or on Saturday, will update you all if it is the right length then

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Sounds like $80 well spent. I'm sure it will fit fine now.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Good enough!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Wow looks good!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

naturally you lower the truck, and if you get past the driveshaft problems then something else creeps up, in our case it was the rear brake rubber line that attaches to the differential and feeds the two wheels

well I'm glad I saw it, or there would be no rear brakes soon

note how we fixed it, RoadKill would be proud (who watches that show on YouTube?)

Safety Police, this is a temporary fix to drive the truck to the side of the garage, we will get a longer rubber line soon enuff and route it proper like, or maybe go turn downs on the exhaust right after the mufflers and loose the bendy pipes over the diff, hmm - what say you?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

the fun continued...

as you recall we had to remove the fuel tank to grind off the rivets on the passenger side leaf spring hanger, so today we had to put the tank back on, but first, we had to drain it of gas, yes it did have TEN GALLONS of fuel in it, that's 5 trips to the wifes thirsty Honda Pilot with a 2 gallon red bucket

FUN LEVEL = 2

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

we tapped the old fuel sending unit out with a punch wrapped in electric tape and a hammer, and a few Hail Marys

I am glad the new single outlet sending unit came with a new rubber O ring and a new round metal retainer ring loop thingie, since in a bit of irony the old rubber O ring became hard, and the old metal retainer loop became soft, go figure

so here they are the old style sending unit and it's modern day replacement

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Glad too see things back in shape. I watch Roadkill religiously. Been watching it since day uno.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

That's my boy, they do have a square body in their [ahem] fleet:

The Muscle Truck

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

so since I went to a single line fuel sending unit I decided to get a brand new vented gas cap, they had the fancy locking one, but it was made of plastic so I went for the stock looking metal one

here are the old and new caps compared, I wonder if my old one was even vented, as it looks different

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and here's the new one

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and here they are side by side for comparison

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

then I decided to go back and shim the hangers as the new ones are 1/4 wider than the stock ones, (in the pick it looks like maybe an 1/8th but that's because the bracket was bent in from bolting it in too much), so a quick trip to Home Depot to get some 1/2 grade 8 washers, bought 9 but 3 on either side seemed to do the trick

the distance from the frame to the inside of the hanger appeared to be the same between the old and new hangers, so I only shimmed the outside