Can anyone answer a ? for me, I have a 1966 chevy c10 that I'm redoing and I'm switching to a 350 with a th400 trans, the truck is at the body shop right now and one of the guys there said I could switch to a 1 piece drive line by cutting the crossmember for the carrier bearing at the bottom but leave the top and the rest of it intact. now I'm thinking that would be ok EXCEPT that the trailing arms for the rearend attach to that crossmember and it seems like that would weaken it. anyone know about this
In the 65 I'm running a 350/700R4 and I'm running a 1 piece but I didn't have to. I had to have my front shaft shortend anyway so I decided why the hell not. In the 64 I had a 350-350 with a 2 piece. No problem. On the 65 I removed the carrier bearing and the bracket "2 rivits". My cross member is still compleate. Some say when the front shaft is to short it causes viberations. Some say it don't. It's up to you really. I haven't had a problem with eather truck.
For the suspension to work right the drive shaft and the trailing arms need to pivot at approximately the same location. In other words they should be parallel to each other. Cutting and making a one piece drive shaft sounds good but in practical application it just isn't a good idea.
I did that swap once in a '65 short bed, with a low hump cab. The shortbed had a once piece driveshaft already. I put in a turbo 350 trans. It was an easy swap. I used the emergency brake bracket for a rear transmission mount by flipping it upside down. This way you wont lose your mounting for the parking brake linkage either. The Turbo 350 and 400 will fit under a low hump floor too. Its tight but it will fit. Only thing I had trouble with was the clearance for the Lokar shifter. I had to cut out a big hole and cover it up with a big square shifter boot. Youll have to get a longer speedo cable and use an adjustable detent cable to get the right length for your passing gear linkage...Also the radiator for the 6 banger wont support the V8. The 64-66 Chevys are already set up for the V8 radiator. They mount about two inches behind the six banger radiator and drop the mounting two to three inches. I cruised the junk yards to find the factory keeps. Theres two kinda "U" shaped ones that mount on the bottom, the holes are already there. And a longer single upper top support, that bolts right up to the same location as the six banger rad..Hope this helps..
Agreed. Replace the center hanger bearing and button it up. It doesn't pay to go to a 1-piece shaft unless you're dropping it to the ground or making other changes that impact the driveline. Bob
Sit back and ask yourself - Why would all the Engineers that Chevrolet had, and were under enormous pressure to design items with the least possible cost, design a two piece drive shaft, bearing and related parts if they weren't essential ?
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