No test drive today, nasty weather. I took the drive shaft and had it balanced with the newer out of phase front shaft. I also took the two "bad" drums that I felt were causing some of my vibration over to a friend that has a nice old bubble balancer and we experimented to see if it would give an indication from the drums. The first drum which was initially on the car and I feel was the thorn in our side that kept us from feeling improvement in the drive shaft angles, was off 4 ounces. That is a wheel weight that is about 5 inches long. The second bad drum is one of the replacements I bought and was the next one we balanced, it was off over 6 ounces. We had two bubble balancers the one that worked well was a small unit, probably from the 60-70s. The larger more heavy duty unit would not work, there was not enough weight to make the spring compress. After finding out how bad the drum was, I took it back to NAPA and they were more than cooperative. So we decided to experiment and took a piece of metal and made several cuts until it was just under the weight we needed to make the drum come true. We figured mig welding it on would add a slight amount of weight. So I had 4 drums, one I took back, the one we experimented with today and the 2 on the car, one really good and the other fair. I am going to take those two off the car over to the balancer tomorrow and check them out. I have been working on cars as a hobby for most of my life, this is the first bad experience with drums. Obviously some of you have had trouble before as you nailed it, earlier. Anything you are trying to fix and it has two problems causing the same result is a nightmare to troubleshoot. I bet we had the drive shaft in a tolerable condition several times and did not realize it because the drum was still shaking. So tomorrow I will mig the weight on and check the other two drums and see where I stand. I will get another live test in soon I hope.
One last word on the digital angle finder I bought from Home Depot. I have been dealing with drive shafts all my career, on cars I built and cars I was helping others with. I always used a swinging needle unit I bought at Sears 25 years ago and was always pleased with the results but the digital is so much better, I just never had a clue. I am not saying you need one to be successful but I would say once you had it you would not want to give it up. Just $30 will put on in your tool box. Cannot go in the store and buy one, you must order it online. They have2 different styles, a 2 button and a 3 button, either is great I am sure but I bought the 3 button, more is better? right?..