Hi. I have a 50 Pontiac convertable which has been slightly rodded. At some point in its life it's had the original motor and trans swapped for a Pontiac 400/TH350 from, I'm told, a 67 GTO. The rearend seems to be the original one but the driveshaft has run into some problems. It started vibrating and investigation revealed that the rear u-joint was in trouble. It's a strange looking set-up as the u-joint goes directly into a pair of bearing blocks with cleats that bolt to the pinion flange. The u-joint has damaged one of these blocks and these now need replacing. I'm also not so sure that the driveshaft itself is 67 GTO as the parts listed for the u-joint should be a 1 1/8" one and the one I need to replace is a 1" diameter. My problem is two-fold: First I need to know if this bearing block deal is indeed original to the car and if so where I could find replacements. Second, if I can't get replacements, I'm looking for another way to get the driveline back together again. Here's a couple of pictures of what I mean by bearing blocks. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Also looks similar to the rear u-joint on my '52 Ford, was able to get it at NAPA, comes with 2 of those instead of the "normal" caps on all 4.
My 40 Pontiac had that setup also. When I put the v8 and four speed in it with a chevy drive shaft, I actually looked through an old u joint book and bought 2 u joints and swaped the caps to get the spacing I needed. It was pretty easy. Gary
you can still get that style its called a saginaw U joint a good driveline shop should be able to order them o have them in stock as they use them on some heavy equipment
Thanks fellers............easy when you know what you're looking for. Now I'm a happy camper.............!!!