driveshaft and pinion angles

[SlammedDime]

Originally Posted by el curioso

Heres some very help full info on this SITE IMO it's one of the best rear suspension pages I Have read.

I disagree, however maybe thats because I used to run bagginit.com and no longer do and know its going down the ****ter.

OP: Here's what I'm getting from your post: The operating angle between your tranny and first shaft is 4° and the operating angle between the first and second shaft is 16° (pretty extreme... anything over 8 will cause joints to wear more quickly over time). Taking the larger number from the smaller, we get a total operating angle of 12°. That means that the operating angle between the second shaft and pinion needs to be 12°. You have a second shaft pointing up at 8° and your pinion pointing down 5° towards the front of the truck. Subtract them, and you get 3° all together. As you can see, 12 and 3 are pretty far apart. In order to correct that, your pinion would have to tilt down around 20°, which is pretttttty extreme.

I would highly recommend that you look into shimming up the transmission and the carrier bearing as well. This will decrease the angles between the first and second shafts, and will thus require a smaller angle between the pinion and second shaft. What kind of drop or setup do you have on this truck? At what height are you trying to set this up at?

I guess the biggest misconception that a lot of people have is that it all revolves around the angles of the objects to mother earth, but its really about the angles between the different objects and how they interact (their operating angles, which you saw me mention).

Something else I should ask, on your two shaft setup, do you have single joints connecting everything, or are they double cardan joints (which would make life hell of a lot easier)?

[el curioso]

Originally Posted by SlammedDime

I disagree, however maybe thats because I used to run bagginit.com and no longer do and know its going down the ****ter.

I was talking about the document not the company I didn't even know that they were a company.I thought it was just an informative web page, oh well live and learn. are they related to AIM if they are I agree stay away.

But then I barely came into the bagging scene around a year ago.

[jlaird]

Hey matt, thank you so much! Just the man I wanted to hear from.

Anyway, your math is exactly what I came up with after reading your article, so because of the extreme angles, I knew something is wrong. The truck is currently on jack stands, level, and at ride height. I read a bunch on s10forum last night and came to the same conclusion as you did: The carrier bearing needs to be moved up and possibly the transmission. As far as I understand, all the connections look like they are single U-joints.

I'm surprised that I've never read about this issue on this site. I always see people notching their cab and assumed those were only people with a one-piece driveshaft. Is there anybody else out there that have a two-piece shaft and slammed? Matt, fyi, there are pics of my truck in a thread called "progress pics" Should be close to the top of the suspension forum.

Thanks for your help. I've never shimmed a tranny before. Any comments or suggestions?

[SlammedDime]

Originally Posted by el curioso

I was talking about the document not the company I didn't even know that they were a company.I thought it was just an informative web page, oh well live and learn. are they related to AIM if they are I agree stay away.

But then I barely came into the bagging scene around a year ago.

By 'run', I mean that I ran the website, updated it, kept it alive, made sure info was up to date, etc, etc. Its not a company just a website. Its not related to AIM either. Its just another website out there that sits with no updates now. Now all the good stuff is in the link in my signature.

jlaird: Shimming the tranny is fairly easy, as long as you have the room under the cab for it (which you should). Take a look under the transmission and you can see that it is bolted to a rubber mount, which is then bolted to a crossmember. Normally there will be two bolts holding the tranny to the rubber mount. You simply have to make or buy some shims to go between the tranny and that rubber mount, and you may have to get some longer bolts as well. Don't use washers, as I've seen some other people do. I took some 3/16" steel plate, cut it with the grinder, notched it for the bolts, then put in as many shims (ended up being 3) as I needed to get the angle up.