1959 Driveshaft

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
We have tried both, after the angles were decent but before we replaced the brake drum. The vibration at 60 was slightly less with out of phase but the shutter had a marked improvement over the "in phase. One of the guys commented either on this blog or another that I read, fixing X frame drive shaft vibration is like "black magic", not sure I will go that far but if you have developed something that works for you, what can be better. It seems out of phase is working better for me although longer tests with less traffic are desired, if something different seems to work better on another car then I call that success.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
ragtp66,
Thanks for the great article, not that it might be absolutely correct but I feel "any knowledge is power". One source of the article was Inland Empire Drive shafts and I consider those guys very reputable. I bought the slip joint rear shaft and solid CB and in my opinion is well engineered. One thing to consider in my opinion, if you can get your angles correct it is a wonderful addition to you project. For me getting the angles exactly correct has not been possible. If you cant get things perfect this rear slip shaft is 30 pounds by itself and being that heavy you might feel more from the drive shaft. When I had it in I can not say it really vibrated more but just seemed a little more harsh. When I get things as perfect as possible I might be willing to give it another try, it is a well built piece. I have had the pleasure to talk with Greg of Inland several times at several car shows and he will tell you as this article alluded it is best to use the solid CB and slip joint as a pair. As the article said normal driving will cause the drive shaft to move forward and back, thus the original reason for the flexibility in the original CB. With the solid CB something needs to flex and the slip shaft accomplishes this. Some guys are doing it differently with success as they have stated on this blog, I say do what ever works, where would the world be today without experimentation?
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
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?..
 

blkblk63ss

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 5
Agree on a digital angle meter. I also have a sweep needle type from harbor frieght,and yes it it much harder to give a quick glance compared to a larger number on a meter. I have seen those and have been thinking about getting one since you can also check caster angle if you align your own vehicle. Models on this site shows it on his setting his caster. Hopefully when you drive your car it will be a improvement.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Lonnie,
I LOVE gray hair!!!! LOL... it is so much better than none at all... Seems these days I have more scars on my head than hair. I never realized how beneficial hair was to give some protection from head bumps while under the car lift. These days mine is getting somewhat thin............ I just hate projects that make more fall out!!!
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
We started discussing the difficulties of trying to weld the cast and somewhat gave up on that. Don't know if there is enough material to remove. They welded weights to the best of the two rims I bought but it is some kind of spot weld, some of you guys know way more about that type weld than I do, shout out if you are familiar. The one drum is not any good as is so I might experiment and try to figure out something. Thanks on the good words on trying to weld the cast, think we were grabbing at straws trying to save a drum, not really thinking. There are no fins on these drums and not a lot of bulk anywhere, check it out better tomorrow.
 

La Hot Rods

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 15
If they are cast steel you could weld them.
Why don't you have Napa order two more drums maybe one out of two are good and you can return the new bad one?
 

wristpin

Well Known Member
Cast iron can be welded. Cast iron shielded welding ROD. The drum could be heated in an oven to 450-500°F then welded. Then put back into oven to heat it up again to 450-500°. Then turn oven off and let it cool to room temp.
Honestly i would remove that weight with a 4" side grinder.
 

La Hot Rods

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 15
If you have access to a D/C stick....get some nickel rod....use a torch to do some pre heat....then weld them on and let them cool.
If they pass the slag chipping you should be good to go.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
No real work on car today, started with a flat tire on my truck. Still a good day, we found an even better bubble balancer and checked all 3 drums again, all were off some, from 3/4 ounce, 1 1/2 ounce and 3 ounces. My friend has some high temp adhesive for a jet plane of something, so we are trying a glue on approach, heck all it can do is put a bullet hole in the quarter panel but it they hold, they will be balanced. Tomorrow a road test I hope.
 

blkblk63ss

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 5
No real work on car today, started with a flat tire on my truck. Still a good day, we found an even better bubble balancer and checked all 3 drums again, all were off some, from 3/4 ounce, 1 1/2 ounce and 3 ounces. My friend has some high temp adhesive for a jet plane of something, so we are trying a glue on approach, heck all it can do is put a bullet hole in the quarter panel but it they hold, they will be balanced. Tomorrow a road test I hope.
Adhesive for a jet plane???? It's going to fly off!!!:lmao
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Adhesive for a jet plane???? It's going to fly off!!!:lmao

I agree with you, its a try, got to get weight on the drums so this is something they use in aero space industry, I don't think the flying weight will hurt anything, you might not want to ride behind me thou. I would like to take the balancer to the auto parts store and just keep unboxing drums until I found a couple good ones, there are none in eastern Virginia, they have to be shipped from a warehouse in Richmond, so I do not have that luxury. If I order them from Eckler or someone I would just end up doing a lot of return shipping, I suspect most are made in the same China factory.
 
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