dmelvin

iTrader: (8)

About a year and a half ago, I broke a u-joint and tossed the driveshaft from my truck. I never though anything of it. Looked everything over and it all seemed to be fine.

Fast forward a year and 4 months. Do a head/cam swap, as well as LT headers. Get a scan cable from Blackbear Performance and go to do a scan. During a WOT run, at about 96 MPH my truck starts shaking like I'm in an Earthquake. I back off of it, finish the scan and then head out on a 80 mile one way trip to look at a new project. On the way back, the transmission starts slipping... BAD. Turns out, I broke the extension housing and ran it out of fluid on the way home.

Order a new extension housing, a new PB lvl 2 transmission, and a Circle-D stall. Get everything together over the course of a few weeks, and take it back out. I over torqued and pulled the threads out of one of the bolt holes where the extension housing bolts to the transmission, and have a leak from there ever since. Didn't have time to fix it, so I just kept putting fluid in it. 3 weeks ago, I helicoiled the damaged threads, and got the leak to stop, for about 2 days. I figured it was the same thing and didn't think anything of it. Last week, I stopped at my parents for about 10 minutes, came back outside, and my truck had an enormous leak... like half a quart in that 10 minutes. I crawled underneath it and see a crack on my extension housing again.

Ordered another extension housing, and a new driveshaft... remembering that I had thrown it out at one point, and I finally decided that had to of been what was causing it.

Pulled everything apart on Thrusday, and is what I ended up with.





So I got it replaced, and then I pulled my new "OEM" high speed balanced driveshaft out... and made this face



It weighs a good 20 pounds more than my stock one... I never asked them what it's rated for, but I'm willing to bet it can handle more than a stock DS.


Got everything back together and took it out for a test run. For the first time in several months... my truck doesn't leak a single fluid ... and on top of that, with the new driveshaft, it rides like a Caddy compared to how it did before. I guess the vibrations I was feeling I just blamed on shitty roads... now I know better.

Just had to let everyone know about my 2 month long battle with my drivetrain, and the sweet taste that victory has.

jpodell

iTrader: (3)

Glad you got it fixed. That has to feel good.

dmelvin

iTrader: (8)

The relief I feel that I've finally got everything the way it's supposed to be is just unreal. The whole thing has been stressing me out for the last month.

Bigschwerm

iTrader: (26)

Congratz...I know that kind of stuff always gets on my nerves to.

skeet

iTrader: (18)

glad ya got 'r worked out, its nice when everything is running smooth

fastrt

iTrader: (48)

You broke a lot before you found it. glad you got it all straight. the new shaft looks a little longer. make sure it fits in with no problems, my built DS broke partially due to it being too long and it binding.

hog

That exact same scenario happened to me as well. The 1st time required a new extension housing. After installing the new extension housing and a new custom steel shaft, the 1st run up to 85mph caused the new housing to let go, this time the output shaft sheered off as well causing carnage to the cats and exhaust.
I was running 4.10 gears with 27" tires, so that driveshaft was turning some rpm and turned quite a few times before I got the truck stopped. I went temporarily insane at the side of the road, but eventually stopped yelling at the heavens on the side of the freeway

Cause was a worn set of rearend gears/bearings.

peace
Hog

dmelvin

iTrader: (8)

Man... I was about to start tearing my hair out... if this wouldn't have worked, I was just going to light a match and walk away

I measured it, because I thought the same thing... they're both 43.25" from center of u-joint to center of u-joint. My other worry was that it was going to bind in either the transfer case slip yolk or the yolk in the rear diff. I don't know what they're called, but where the DS wraps around the u-joints is a good 8th inch thicker all the way around.

Luckily I didn't break anything that bad.

Like I said, I did toss the DS out one night... I got really lucky, it just put a dent in the muffler and shot out the side... didn't touch the bed, or slice open a tire at the very least.