700r4 driveshaft

[elimontfort]

I found a thread awhile ago where someone said that you can use a drive shaft out of a short bed truck from 82 and up? Can anyone point me in the right direction. I've been looking for that post on and off for two months. Thanks for any help.

[WIDESIDE72]

Not much to it. Just find the same truck the trans came out of. If you have a lwb, fond one out of an 82-87 lwb. Same goes for swb.

[elimontfort]

I got the trans out of a 92 Camaro. My 68 is a short bed. I was gonna go grab one from the pick and pull and see if it fits. I'm pretty sure it will but wanted to find that post. Thanks for the info man.

[67chevy1]

There is a guy here that used a driveshaft out of a buick road master also. Actually I just sent him a pm about if he had to do anything to the driveshaft at all to use it. I haven't heard from him this evening. I just got home from picking up a 700r4 for my short bed this evening. I'm not ready for it yet other than I'm going from a manual to an automatic and need the spot to install my cross member.

[elimontfort]

Thanks 67chev. Tom ill pull some measurements and go to the yard and start looking at some drive shafts. Either that or ill call Denny's driveshafts. Good luck on your swap.

[WIDESIDE72]

I believe the ds i used in my 72 swb was 57-1/2" from center of front joint to center if rear joint.

[elimontfort]

I'll post up what I find today guys.

[elimontfort]

Hey 67 chev good call on that road master driveshaft. Found out that any b body drive shaft should work. I went to pick and pull today and they had 1 roadmaster there a 92 and I believe it has a good tranny in it. So I grabbed both for 130 bucks with the converter. Again thanks to all for the info!

[brad_man_72]

Id never go through the effort of tryng to find a junkyard shaft for a custom vehicle. Its way too easy and cheap to just call the driveline shop and have them build a NEW shaft that FITS and is BALLANCED. Way too many length variables just using stock parts on these old trucks to try to use the lenght measure ment from another truck or car. Then hope that the vehicle had never been picked up by a fork lift or been in an accident that would damage the driveshaft. Even if the junkyard shaft is the right length and straight, it probably needs ujoints, which means it should be ballanced so you're still going to the driveline shop to spend money on a USED shaft that might fit.

Sounds like a really good way to spend $100 to save $10

[WIDESIDE72]

Originally Posted by brad_man_72

Id never go through the effort of tryng to find a junkyard shaft for a custom vehicle. Its way too easy and cheap to just call the driveline shop and have them build a NEW shaft that FITS and is BALLANCED. Way too many length variables just using stock parts on these old trucks to try to use the lenght measure ment from another truck or car. Then hope that the vehicle had never been picked up by a fork lift or been in an accident that would damage the driveshaft. Even if the junkyard shaft is the right length and straight, it probably needs ujoints, which means it should be ballanced so you're still going to the driveline shop to spend money on a USED shaft that might fit.

Sounds like a really good way to spend $100 to save $10

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man....

While you have a good point about the forklift issue, i have run junkyard shafts in three trucks with no issues.

Also i guess i am "flirting with disaster", but I have never had a shaft rebalanced after changing u joints. I just mark the shaft and yoke and put them back like they came. When i did my first swap as a teenager, I didnt even swap on new ujoints. I guess God looks out for those of us who dont know any better.

[elimontfort]

That was awesome wideside!

[CaptRMW]

I am running a driveshaft from a Caprice, I think 1991 and did the innie outie ujoint on the rear to make it hook up to the pinion yoke. Wow am I in the crapper or what no balance, didn't even think of the driveshaft store, oddball ujoints. That driveshaft is scaring me and I am afraid of nothing. I am out of beer but I will walk to the store. I know a local fireman and I will see if he can get me one of those signs "Stay back 300 feet"

[elimontfort]

Hey capt what part number did you use for the rear u joint?

[CaptRMW]

Auto Zone 3-3130DL Lifetime warranty Regards, Roger

[elimontfort]

Rog thanks

[Tx Firefighter]

On a swb truck with a 700r4 and proper small block mounts, an 82 and newer SWB driveshaft from the junkyard fits properly. I've even used the composite ones from mid 90s era swb trucks.

Bradman, I know you have history from working in a driveline shop. You bottom out the yoke in the trans, back it out 3/4 of an inch or so and measure from there. In this case swb 700r4 shafts are the perfect length. The only caveat is that you have to use a conversion u-joint in the rear to adapt it to the earlier 12 bolt rearend yoke. Using common sense as to the condition of the driveshaft, there's no reason to shy away from using a used one. The work ethic of people in all trades has deteoritated so much in recent times that I'll run a factory GM driveshaft if I can to avoid having to rely on a driveline shop to do the work properly when building one. Obviously forklift damage or hard crashed can/will cause driveshaft damage, but there's gobs of trucks in the yards with perfectly good driveshafts out there that haven't suffered those fates.

I have personally done this kind of stuff for better than 20 years with much success. You've been here long enough to see that I've put together a lot of trucks and driven them many, many miles. As I've gotten older, I've seen more clearly that there is an area between textbook proper and what flat won't work. There's many things, mechanically speaking, that you can safely do that don't necessarily fall into the textbook definition of perfect but they're still far from the "won't work" definition too.

I've sat through several years of college learning the mechanic trade, but it's the years since then that's taught me so much. You get the ideal correct way ingrained in your head, then out there in the world you see stuff that's a whole long way from that. I've pointed out truly hack stuff to folks over the years, and when they respond with something like "well my daddy did that back in the 70s and we've been using it every day since then without any problems" it makes you realize there truly is a wide grey area between right and wrong.

[brad_man_72]

I've seen my share of trashed/cracked transmissions and transfer cases from vehicles that "didn't have a vibration". I've seen way too many post on this board about people replacing carrier bearings every year because they don't know better and don't have their shafts ballanced. I'm cheap and lazy.

You mentioned proper v8 stands but you didn't mention if they were in the front or rear position or swappped side to side, that's 4 possible different length driveshafts without swapping any parts.

[Tx Firefighter]

Small block engine stands will only bolt in correctly one way. If you reverse them the holes won't line up. If you put them in the rear holes, only two of the three holes will line up.

[elimontfort]

Brad man I'm sure if I worked in a driveline shop and could make my own driveshaft for just cost of materials in would be cheap and I would do it. But I don't so I have to rely on vendors who charge anywhere from 300 to 600 dollars to make a driveshaft. And probably take a month or two to do it and that's not counting on them or myself making a mistake. I'm sure you need to legitimize what you do as extremely important. But as numerous people have pointed out if you use some comman sense and don't go slapping a bent or worn out shaft in there you shouldn't have any problems. Now if I was gonna set the trans brake turn on the nitrous and do a 5500 launch then yeah I probably shouldn't run a small drive shaft out of a 92 Buick with the original u joints. Thanks for your input it has been noted.

[brad_man_72]

Hey if you want to spend a week driving to junkyards to buy a junk shaft for $100 that you have to spend another $200 at a driveline shop to make it work, knock yourself out. I've seen it done a hundred times. Hopefully you don't tear anything else up in the process, I've seen plenty of that also.

I don't build driveshafts any more so it doesn't make me any money to give out free advice. Some people only hear what they want to hear, everybody learns, some the easy way some the hard way. Good luck

Btw, there's plenty of 550hp race cars with driveshafts smaller than anything that came in a stock buick