Front Drive Shaft Questions and a Junk Yard Run

[hellrazrblade]

I'm new to the scene (had my '71 K5 4x4 less than two weeks), so i guarantee I'll be asking some stupid questions. I'm researching as much as I can through old threads, but I've still got some questions.

Essentially, I bought this truck and it didn't have a front drive shaft hooked up or a pinion yoke (correct term?) on the Dana 44. Pictures will be at the end of the post, and hopefully they're good enough to see what's going on. The differential shaft has 26 splines. As you can see in the pictures, there is a 4degree wedge installed between the leaves and the perch to lessen the U joint angle. The truck has about 6" of suspension lift, and the Tcase is an NP205 (both the Dana 44 and NP205 are presumably the stock equipment).

I'm heading to the junk yard tomorrow to look for some donor trucks. What trucks/blazers/years can be donors for the yoke? Are there any vehicles with shafts that I can pull that will work? I've also heard that I can take an old shaft and get it lengthened at a drive shaft shop for fairly cheap to compensate for the lift. Is that true?

While I'm at the yard, I'm going to be looking for some new 3 point seatbelts to install. I've been reading the following threads about the subject:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=176995
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ad.php?t=74199
I've attached pics of the bucket seats that are installed right now, and my question is: will the S10 belts still work with my seats? The floor is recarpeted, so I would need to know where to go digging for the mount holes. I tried finding the rollbar mounts 72beast/TONYP talked about over at CK5.com, but I can't seem to find them. Are there instructions for building them/how to get some? I have a rollbar installed, and 3point belts would make me feel a TON safer.

Thanks for all of the help I've already gotten just by looking through the site, and especially for any insight yall could provide. I know the post is long winded, but I can't stand articles/posts/ads with too little info.

Where I read about pinion angles:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ad.php?t=88099

here's some pics of the truck for reference:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=225120

[Jtrux]

Up to 77 dana 44's were located under the front ends of most chevy's ( actually that may be the year when the 10 bolt was introduced so either axle was available, I guess look for pre 77 to be sure) so any one of those pinion yokes should work. Since your gears have been changed to 4.88 ( I read that in the welcome area) it may be different but not likely. As far as driveshafts a custom one is probably in order ( your looking at around 300 bucks). You could pull one off of any 1/2 ton blazer, truck, suburban and have it lengthened too but I personally would go new on that, but that's just me.

[badchev69]

as far as the shaft goes... any front shaft off a 88ish-2002 cherokee will bolt right on. It also has the cv for the higher lift. Heck it bolted on my 11" of lift on mine with no vibs. should run you under $50

[hellrazrblade]

I just went out and fumbled with my flashlight, ruler, and camera until i could get the following picture. It looks like the diameter of the pinion shaft at the peaks of the splines (is that the correct way to measure?) is 1 3/16"=1.1875". I have a pic that I modified in paint below.

This site says that the dana44 has a pinion diameter of 1.376"=1 3/8" :
http://www.drivetrainspecialists.com...-44/index.html

After hunting some more, I found this site that says the diameter is 1.146", which is within 4 hundreds of what I measured visually.
http://www.arizonadrivelines.com/Tra..._end_yokes.htm

Are there two different common pinion shaft diameters for Dana 44's? If so, is there a way to tell what trucks would have my diameter without ripping into them?


JTrux, thanks for the model/year information. $300 is just about what I got quoted earlier today for a custom shaft at a local shop. The thing that started getting me concerned was that they didn't have a pinion yoke that fit.

BadChev, once I get this pinion diameter problem figured out, I'll most likely be looking for a cherokee front shaft. If I break it too quick, I'll get something made. I'm pretty impressed that it will hold up the your 11" lift.