Hot Rods Driveshafts and Pinion Angle Problems

Not to be a giant dark cloud or anything but just from pictures show I see a lot of suspect stuff going on with the fabrication and chassis stuff on your car..

I would suggest having someone who understands early ford street rods give it a good once over , based on a lot of 31 vickeys posts I believe he has the capacity to help you out and make your car safe, or hopefully some other local hambers to you might have reputable names they can pass on to you

It really takes a GOOD hotrod guy to put you straight, this stuff is lost on a 4x4 guy race car guy or a muscle car guy

Nothing wrong with a graffiti car clone, don’t apologize if you like it, everyone loves that movie and most dig that funky little car even if they are too cool to say so

May not feel like it now , but with the right help you can get that car dialed so you can have many fun trouble free miles behind the wheel

 

Your rear suspension is total CRAP.

Actually, the whole car is highly suspect.
Take everything apart.
Assume that nothing is correct.

 

Yep. Thankfully you have some of the best builders and designers here to help you.

 

First let me point out that eggs have yolks, and driveshafts have yokes.

@Eric Satterfield please ignore the following. It's a mind-fuck for most people and you don't need any more confusion thrown your way.

I like to insert this image into these driveshaft angle threads, because it is absolutely a valid configuration, yet the pinion shaft and trans output shaft are definitely not parallel. This is called a "W" or broken back configuration. Note that the u-joints are aligned in phase, and their deflection angle is equal (4.5º each), hence any "sine wave" rotational acceleration/deceleration of the driveshaft that is caused by the deflection of the front joint is canceled by the rear one, so the trans output shaft and pinion shaft rotate identically. Summary: No pulsation-induced vibration caused by bad angles or out of phase joints. You may discuss if you desire.

 

Ebb, you are confusing the situation even more by showing him a driveshaft with a spline in the middle of it. It's not what he has at all, and would take more fab work than if he just fixed his traction bars the correct way.

 

That's why I told him to ignore it.

 

And we swore up and that we'd never use that high school geometry!

Parallel alignment and don't forget the u-joint "phasing" once you have that figured out you can raise or lower your rear end and/or engine to improve angles...

 

Someone draw ^^this up^^ in cad

Ok I guess I'm forced to do an old fashioned doodle based off the description and the photo provided.

 

My limited education has had my numbers backwards at least at the rear end. I fully understand what needs to happen to correct the angle issue...However I have been wrong in what I have been (And everyone else who has helped me on the car) calling NEGATIVE on the rear end..The pinion is is fact Positive I thought that if the U-Joint saddles were pointing at the ground that this was a Negative reading. I did not understand until I saw helpful posts from people here. That this is in fact read as I will call it in a straight line....My numbers are correct and my third member is in fact 5.4 Positive and Not Negative giving me something like a total of 6.8 or close. Back to the repair...Moving the trailing arms/traction bar bolts up did not lend enough to correct it and all it did was take what travel the suspension had away and put the bars against a cross member. Today after work I am going to move them to the original position and pie cut the traction bars. A friend of a friend is supposed to come up today that has some experience with dirt track chassis's and is a certified welder..THANK YOU to everyone who has taken the time to post/personal message/ me or offered to assist in person...Eric.....Also I downloaded a program for the old lady's phone from Tremec to check this angle....

 

Not just the bars but the spring perches need adjusted too. Probably shock mounts. It needs 7* rotation just to get close and then fine tune it.

 

When you try to change the pinion angle, with the shitty parallel ladder bars,
you also have to consider the spring mounts. One fights the other.

 

Dare I ask for pics, of the front end, on this weapon ?

 

This is how I built total adjustability into my old school ladder bar setup.

 

Forgot to post picture . Sorry. This allows for pinion angle and wheelbase adjustments. I also have a 3 hole mounting bracket on the front. A little more work but totally worth it in the end. As I am dealing with a less than 24 inch driveshaft.

 

Eric
I know how discouraging all this can be, but most of us have had to learn things the hard way also. Some more costly than others. In the end, you'll have a good car that you can enjoy and fix/repair as needed along the way.
Hang in
Jim

 

It may pay to burn it down and start over... I mean the rear and those questionable bars, plus you probably have a tweaked axle tube or 2.

 

Thank You for all who took their time to help

 

Great... now we'll never know how it turns out...

 

This suspension does not belong on a street-going vehicle.

It is a drag-race-only design.

 

Perfect!

Let's obscure how to fix improperly built things!

 

I totally agree with Gimpy.
That is a race only setup. No good at all on the street

 

It's fixed for now anyway....We spent another 15 hours over the weekend...But it's finally noise free on the road..Pie cutting the traction bars/lower arms. The angle of the diff. was so Positive that making the correction pushed the yoke into the transmission from sticking out 1.5" to 13/16...I used the app from Tremec to measure the corrections that was made.I will be saving my money for a 4 link or something similar for this coming winters project..But at least for now I can travel 10-15 miles away for some cruise in's etc...Thank you all again....No one knows how frustrating this whole thing has been for me since Feb.

 

Glad you persevered with it and can drive it now and enjoy it somewhat. Do the upgrade and it will be better. Good one.

 

Hi Eric , Good for you. When you look up the definition of the word perseverance , it should read"the act of working the bugs out of your hot rod" . I'm confident you will persevere. Good Luck, Bill

 

For a new rear suspension locating setup I recommend the Pete & Jakes style ladder bars. Can be used with either a spring or (shudder) coil overs. These P&J ladder bars are simple, adjustable, and very proven on hot rods for decades.

Granted, they aren't what John Milner would have installed, but maybe they would have helped his 1/4 mile times.

 

And made his car corner safely.

 

I too have a clicking sound under deceleration. I have built many 100's of this style 32 Ford chassis with no problems. Centered 9 inch with either buggy spring or coil overs and P&J ladder bars. This particular chassis happens to have coil overs. SBC with 350 turbo. Custom drive shaft with about 1 inch of the yoke out of the trans. Yoke does not have any wiggle, u joints seem tight and the pinion angel is the same as I've always done. I'm baffled. I have about 1500 miles on the car and cannot seem to diagnose the problem. I guess I'll just drive it until and see what happens?

 

U joints are not too expensive, and only a mild pain to install. Is it worth an afternoon to switch them out?

One thing I've learned over the years when installing U joints, especially the captured ends that press into your driveshaft (not U bolted), is to press the yoke back outwards after the cups and retainers are in. Making the cups fit tight against their retainers. If not you might find the end of the yoke contacts the inside of the cup end. Not good.

 

Drive shaft was a new balanced one from the Driveline shop in Springfield MO. They've done lots of new driveshafts for me and my customers with no problems? It could be a bad joint but that would be very unusual.

 

^^^ I deformed a few grease seals, in 'discovery' here! Thnx Alchemy.