[69-CHVL]

Thought some may find this useful for making sure your working angles are good before ordering a $3-4-500 driveshaft only to find you have to send it back for modification or having to buy another altogether because your angles are off which ends up changing the length of the shaft.

I rigged this up with some parts from Home Depot and some misc fittings/plugs I had laying around. The pointed end that I have in the tailshaft of the trans is a piece from a gear puller. The part that is in the pinion is a grease fitting. All the couplers/reducing bushing can be turned in/out to keep the shaft in nice and tight. And the magnetic angle finder which I highly recommend (from Amazon) sticks to the shaft real nice.

I'm trying to find a way to measure the axle to driveline offset, I think I can do that once I have the real shaft in place and I'll put a protractor-type device on the universal cap and measure the shafts horizontal angle.

Think of this as if it were an adjustable pushrod for your driveshaft

Interestingly, the angled that I measured matched the angle I came up with using a right angle calculator, and measuring the center point of the pinion and tailshafts from the ground. I just wanted to see it with my eyes.

 

[DUKE 69]

VERY cool! What a great idea and thanks for sharing!!

 

[Alwhite00]

So it basically shows where the driveshaft will sit. That's the last piece of the puzzle AFTER setting the engine/trans and pinion angle.

 

[427L88]

Wait, if the slip yoke needs between 1.25" - .625" of engagement ( or gap to the tail housing, however you look at it) , , which is pretty loose, that must cover near 10 degrees of driveshaft angle. Not sure why you need to measure it so precisely ? Plus if you measure it correctly, it truly becomes redundant. Dennys Driveshaft How To Measure Correctly for driveshafts that fit right

Nice work, yet......?

 

[Hotwire]

Wait, if the slip yoke needs between 1.25" - .625" of engagement ( or gap to the tail housing, however you look at it) , , which is pretty loose, that must cover near 10 degrees of driveshaft angle. Not sure why you need to measure it so precisely ? Plus if you measure it correctly, it truly becomes redundant. Dennys Driveshaft How To Measure Correctly for driveshafts that fit right

Nice work, yet......?

I was thinking the same thing then put some numbers in to a right triangle calculator.

For demonstration purposes I used this site: https://www.omnicalculator.com/math/right-triangle-side-angle

Say the trans is 1" above the rear yoke, a=1
distance from output shaft to rear yoke, b=55
Angle a = 1.0416 degrees (this is using his straight shaft method)

Now, with trans yoke pullback:
Trans is 1" above the rear yoke, a=1
distance from trans yoke pivot to rear yoke, b=52 (SWAG! yoke + pull back is 3")
Angle a = 1.1017 degrees

So using his method vs using a yoke gives him .07 degree error. That's pretty tolerable considering you'll get that much error from the measuring tools themselves.. Not bad?

 

[bracketchev1221]

Looks like a nice idea.

 

[69-CHVL]

It will def make a difference once you have yokes in place but not much. My calculations show about .04 degree change per inch of length change for my application (~53” overall length).

So if your overall measurement shows a working angle of 3*+ it’s only going to get worse when the yokes are installed.

All I’m suggesting is to get a quick and relatively accurate working angle measurement before ordering a shaft and hoping the angles are ok.