Front Driveshaft

[guidorr73]

Anybody have any experience with compensating the front driveshaft angle on a lifted truck? My dodge broke the front u-joint the other night(1 in the morning). I put in all new hardware in the front 2 years ago with less than 1k miles on it. I feel it should of lasted longer than that. The local shops do not want to touch it because it is "modified". Any help would be appreciated. Thanks all
Larry

[mudseeker]

you have to steep an angle for the u-joints to handle, i'd try some spacers to lower the transmission, transfer case and cross member to get it back to factory angle.

[guidorr73]

Thank you for the reply.
I agree that I need to get the angle back to a manageable tolerance but if i drop the crossmember it will not help the angle unless i drop the engine mounts that of which i cannot do. The truck was originally a 2 wheel drive truck. The person I baught it from changed it to 4wd and it was a hack job. After a lot of work, it is close to road worthy if I can figure out the drive shaft problem. Does anybody sell camber adjust spacers for the front axle? If I can rotate the axle, wouldn't that bring the angle closer to stock? But because it is a solid axle, I think that would mess up the alignment on the front end. The next thing I can think of is getting a custom front driveshaft to handle the angle but I do not know where to get one of those either. Sorry for my blabbing, just thinking out loud. Again, thanks for the input.
Larry

[mudseeker]

my brother and I made our own drive shaft once. we cut two different shafts in half and welded a piece of metal to the inside of one half and then welded the two different halves together. never done a 2w-4w conversion, send some pics if you can.

[chevyguy]

You need a high angle driveshaft made with a spicer unit. It is basicall 2 universal joints made into a coupling to help with really tough angles. Rotating the front axle wont mess up alignment, but will hose up your camber whick will make it hard to control and very unpredictable on the road if you add more than a few degrees. If you are having universal joint problems already then I would look into a high angle driveshaft and check you angles for negative numbers. making you own driveshaft wont help here. Homemade driveshafts are not the answer here, or anywhere unless you can turn them true and balance them, they cause more damage than anything else.

[mudseeker]

Originally Posted by mudseeker

we cut two different shafts in half and welded a piece of metal to the inside of one half and then welded the two different halves together.

it was just a temporary fix, i should have specified that. when he bought the truck the front and rear axles had different gears. when we put it on the hoist it didn't wobble as much as we thought it would. we switched out the rear axle and drive shaft that week.

thanks for pointing it out chevyguy.

[guidorr73]

Thanks for the reply.
I agree that I need to compensate for the high angle and I am looking for a good driveshaft guy around here. I also think because of the lift, I need to lengthen the driveshaft so the yoke splines fully engage. I have a little slop there. I believe I already have a spicer driveshaft going by your discription. 2 u-joints mounted inside a housing. I believe there is a ball and socket also inside that housing. Am I correct? But that part mounts to the t-fer case. What broke is the u-joint that mounts to the front axle. I will try to get some pics. Once I get the pictures, how do I post them for everyone to see? Thanks again,
Larry

[Bootlover]

Hey Larry, how long of service did you say you got out of the jount befor it gernaded? That big 440 mills going to be hard on your joints. Be sure to grease your joints at every oil change (3,000/3mo) and every time you take you rig off road. Wayne

[guidorr73]

Just informing all interested parties,
I finally got around to getting the driveshaft's rebuilt. Yes I found a good driveshaft place. They completely rebuilt both front and the rear 2 piece units. After 3 years of messing around with this, There is absolutely no noise comming from anywhere at any speed. Woohoo! Basically everything was destroyed or worn out. They lengthened and replaced everything. Because the spicer joint was shot, it was taking out the front u-joint prematurely. They did tell me that I might want to replace the front u-joint annually anyways because of the larger than stock angle. No big deal. Thanks for all your help folks. I'll stop by on the next hangup.

[Ford4x4Chik27]

Originally Posted by chevyguy

You need a high angle driveshaft made with a spicer unit. It is basicall 2 universal joints made into a coupling to help with really tough angles. Rotating the front axle wont mess up alignment, but will hose up your camber whick will make it hard to control and very unpredictable on the road if you add more than a few degrees. If you are having universal joint problems already then I would look into a high angle driveshaft and check you angles for negative numbers. making you own driveshaft wont help here. Homemade driveshafts are not the answer here, or anywhere unless you can turn them true and balance them, they cause more damage than anything else.

What he said