I wish I would have had this information handy on the weekend. I had to build a new drive shaft for my Chevy to fix a vibration at 60 MPH. I bought a spare 400 yoke,a Monte Carlo 52.5 inch drive shaft and a couple of new joints. Of course the yoke was not the same as the one I had and the joints would not fit correctly as to what I needed. After several calls to the local auto parts store I ended up swapping caps on several u joints to get it to fit. Borg Warner Super T-10, 400 Turbo front yoke,78 Monte drive shaft mating up to a Ford 9 inch.I had to use a 372 rear joint and swap the caps to the 9 inch. After all of that the vibration is gone! Access to this informative site would have helped out a shit load. http://www.driveshaftspecialist.com/HTML measure/UJ ID Guide.html
"Why not just get a balanced new driveshaft made up ?" No such thing up here....plus it only set me back about $60.00 total.
The best u-joint info I've found so far is the SKF catalog http://www.skf.com/files/894637.pdf I'm planning on using a jeep cherokee driveshaft on my A (80's w/a Manual gearbox should be the perfect length), but needed to determine what joints to use. So I figured out the OEM application, and then matched the adapter joint in needed. To make the cherokee shaft work in my application I need a spicer 1310 x detroit 7260 in the front and a 1310 in the rear. 20 mins reading the catalog saved me the frustration that you experienced. The SKF adapter joints are $15~$20, much cheaper than fabricating a shaft. And I get some quality junkyard time hunting the perfect driveshaft.
The SKF numbers will cross over to Spicer, Precision or other decent U joints if you don't have a local SKF supplier. 30 something years ago JD Fikes in Waco taught me how to use a ring compressor as a guide for a hacksaw to get a straight cut on a driveshaft after cutting the end off by just cutting through the tube next to the weld with the hacksaw all the way around. I've been pretty lucky over the years and only had one vibrate on me.
Driveshafts are not that hard to make. Ends must be in the same plane "exactly" and the tubing and end MUST be square. We cheat a bit and drill a small hole when done for a few ounces of tranny fluid to aid in self balancing. Maybe we have just been lucky but it has worked. Learned from an old welding shop who makes a lot of driveshafts and has no balancer. He told me. If you are usuing good quality driveshaft tubing and everything is perfectly square and the ends are in plane there is no real reason why it would be out of balance. The oil trick was our own idea. It is surprising how well his advice worked. We have shortened several stock shafts using the same method with no bad vibes. First thing we do is scribe the shaft end to end to make sure we reinstall the end in the same plane. Spend time with a carpenters square and a hand file if necesary to get it right. Good enuf here is not good enuf. Spend the extra time. I machine the yoke to be sure it will go in square then tack weld only a bit at a time welding opposite bit by bit. It might seem tedious and foolish to some but our local shop who used to balance them closed years ago and there is nothing I am aware of nearby so we became creative. For instance Mike's 41 Willys Gasser coupe , We did that one and there is no vibes even at 100+MPH. It was made from a scrapped Dodge small motorhome (van type) driveshaft. Don
After assembling my car I found I needed a driveshaft that was 52.5 inches from center of cap to center of cap. The Malibu/Monte Carlo driveshaft was exactly that. Then it was a matter of finding out which u joints to use to finish it up. Turns out that not all turbo 400 slip yokes were created equal.....
back in 1966 went to junk yard to look for a shaft to shorten the counter guy went in back & ccame back wiyh a shortened chrome one that he said i could have for free as it was too short to sell... fit perfect....except the chrome came off 1st time racing it but lasted for years
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