Restoring Rusty

[68Timber]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

Wait...I've been out of touch for a couple of days. All of this dialogue from leaf springs not lining up? How come this shackles won't allow the spring to move forward?

I apologize if I missed something. Don't mean to speak out of turn.

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

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

Oh my...

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?

[Gregski]

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

[Chaplain]

Originally Posted by Gregski

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?

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?

Originally Posted by Gregski

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

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

[Gregski]

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.

[Gregski]

now since this ol' two piece driveshaft was sufferin' from a bit of Separation Anxiety we decided we need to go to Home Depot and contrive a cockamini drive shaft separator

now this hardware may be Grade 3 if that, it ain't impressive at all but it may do

and $30.96 cents later we had ourselves the Drive Shaft Separator 3000

[Gregski]

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

[Gregski]

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

[Gregski]

So now the plan is to clean the splines and the inside cavity real good like cause I see some gunk / old grease at the bottom maybe its hydro locking the shaft so it can't go in more, maybe the shaft is just too long, we don't know yet

Top Tip: The splines and the female end are keyed in the sense that they go in only one way, that is important cause the drive shaft is balanced, so you ought to put it back together the proper way, the key is two splines grouped together so there is a small section where the spline appears to be double wide, just sayin'

Question for HATZIE when we go to lube it up again can we use the White Lightning grease you recommended earlier on in the show, or can we use my daddy's old Castrol all purpose grease instead?

[enaberif]

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.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

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.

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

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Gregski

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

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

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.

[hatzie]

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.

[rich weyand]

Originally Posted by hatzie

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.

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.

[Gregski]

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

[rusty76]

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.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by rusty76

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.

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

[enaberif]

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.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

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

That's the plan for tomorrow, stay tuned.

[y5mgisi]

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.

[y5mgisi]

Basically like these,

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by y5mgisi

Basically like these,

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

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by rich weyand

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.

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.

[Gregski]

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...

[enaberif]

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.