1959 Driveshaft

DonSSDD

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
Are all your transmission and engine mounts in good condition? What are you using for a transmission mount?

Most people on here use the 2 piece original drive shaft, the stock setup. Many if not most have shortened the front shaft due to a change of transmission and all that I know of have the shaft "out of phase" per original factory way.
I'd get a front shaft "fixed" and see what happens. Change one thing at a time and see what happens with the vibration.

Try this:
1. At 60 mph while it is vibrating, shift car into neutral.
2. If no vibration change after doing above, switch off motor.

If still a vibration, could the problem be inside the transmission? I only like cars with 3 pedals, so no expertise at all with autos.
 
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1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Wow! I will try, original 59 Belair, 6 cylinder, power gluide. Removed the body, sandblasted frame and body. Frame completely rebuilt all new bushings etc. Sway bar added front and back. Body painted and reunited with fame. Two inch lowered spindles on front, original springs all around. 95 Corvette 60K engine, rebuilt companion 4L60 transmission. Stock rear end with 355 gears, adjustable panhard bar. CPP power steering box, 17 inch wheels in front, 18 in rear. If I knew how to post pictures I would but have not figured the key to that yet. What else do you need to know, I do appreciate the interest.
 

models916

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 7
4L60 is longer than what the center bearing was designed to do. I've had some pretty good luck with putting the trans tail shaft and the front drive shaft at a 0 angle as if the tail shaft was that long and one piece and then align the pinion to that tail shaft angle, maybe down a little if you have rubber bushings. Parallel to each other as you would with a one piece drive shaft. Mine was pretty vibration free with the 4:11 gear, but when I went to the 4:56, a little vibration returned and I went to one piece shaft. This link shows a little of the one piece

http://www.348-409.com/forum/threads/im-going-to-try-this-out.24155/page-3
 

wristpin

Well Known Member
Has any of the changes or alterations you've made changed any of the frequency or pitch of the vibrations? I'm wondering if vibrations are at the speed of the engine, transmission or driveshaft. It's been asked before, I'm just asking in a different way i guess.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
To Don, a recheck of engine mounts might be in order but EVERYTHING is new (sometimes that's a good reason to recheck). I have not put it in neutral at 60 but will do and also the engine..
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Ok, I just got in from working on the car since 9 am (now almost 830 pm) I think part of the problem has been I fell into a hole I helped create. We started this morning by putting car on a drive on lift and then taking the aux jack and raised the rear wheels off the platform (a safety cable included). We had been reluctant to do this previously but we ran the RPM up and down from 700-2000, in OD, Drive, etc. Along with working on the vibration issue I have been doing some other small jobs where problems were detected.. One of those issues was a tire just slightly getting into the inside of the rear fender well.. I dislike wheel spacers but I bought a pair of 1 inch and installed them last week along with working on the vibration I have had since building the car. So I continued to work on the vibration issue with many angle changes and nothing seemed to change, good or bad. So back to today, we are running the car up to 70 MPH on the lift, I am under listening and "feeling " everything I can touch. The driveshaft is humming along smooth as glass but at 60 the car is vibrating wildly. One wheel (rear driver side) is going NUTS. So to try to shorten this story I will skip the stupid things we did and just say we switched wheels and spacers side to side.. The wild vibration followed the drivers side wheel and spacer over to the passenger side. LIGHT BULB!!! So I removed the spacer on that side and remounted the wheel and no vibration at 60. So it appears along with driveshaft vibration I already had, we added more vibration from the wheel spacer. What can be wrong with a wheel spacer, I have no clue, will examine more tomorrow. I think this might help my 60 MPH vibration but I still have the low speed shutter which maybe now I can evaluate better that I have removed the self inflicted issue.. While under the car there is a noise coming from the rear end that I do not like so tomorrow I will be removing the 355 and installing the original 323. After completing that we will take another spin on the lift and see how the noise and vibration has been affected. In any case I will be back to troubleshooting the original problem. I think this wheel spacer issue has masked all the possible good things I have done in the last couple weeks so it is like starting over again,,, again!!.. Every suggestion has been written down and will be executed in the coming week assuming I get mostly positive results tomorrow. Along with the fact I have previously had 3 sets of wheels on the car, while running it on the lift today I was able to observe one of my wheels is less than perfect. I put it on the spin balancer and it was fine but when mounted it is not running very true. So that is todays efforts. All suggests, comments are greatly appreciated and will become part of my evaluation. Thanks to everyone..
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
I did drive the car in its original form, but after being totally reborn not much of that applies (different engine, trans and rear). As you can see in my last post we have done a stationary run and checked out all running gear. All engine mounts are new (rubber) but I did recheck them today and all seem to be ok.
 

blkblk63ss

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 5
Ok, I just got in from working on the car since 9 am (now almost 830 pm) I think part of the problem has been I fell into a hole I helped create. We started this morning by putting car on a drive on lift and then taking the aux jack and raised the rear wheels off the platform (a safety cable included). We had been reluctant to do this previously but we ran the RPM up and down from 700-2000, in OD, Drive, etc. Along with working on the vibration issue I have been doing some other small jobs where problems were detected.. One of those issues was a tire just slightly getting into the inside of the rear fender well.. I dislike wheel spacers but I bought a pair of 1 inch and installed them last week along with working on the vibration I have had since building the car. So I continued to work on the vibration issue with many angle changes and nothing seemed to change, good or bad. So back to today, we are running the car up to 70 MPH on the lift, I am under listening and "feeling " everything I can touch. The driveshaft is humming along smooth as glass but at 60 the car is vibrating wildly. One wheel (rear driver side) is going NUTS. So to try to shorten this story I will skip the stupid things we did and just say we switched wheels and spacers side to side.. The wild vibration followed the drivers side wheel and spacer over to the passenger side. LIGHT BULB!!! So I removed the spacer on that side and remounted the wheel and no vibration at 60. So it appears along with driveshaft vibration I already had, we added more vibration from the wheel spacer. What can be wrong with a wheel spacer, I have no clue, will examine more tomorrow. I think this might help my 60 MPH vibration but I still have the low speed shutter which maybe now I can evaluate better that I have removed the self inflicted issue.. While under the car there is a noise coming from the rear end that I do not like so tomorrow I will be removing the 355 and installing the original 323. After completing that we will take another spin on the lift and see how the noise and vibration has been affected. In any case I will be back to troubleshooting the original problem. I think this wheel spacer issue has masked all the possible good things I have done in the last couple weeks so it is like starting over again,,, again!!.. Every suggestion has been written down and will be executed in the coming week assuming I get mostly positive results tomorrow. Along with the fact I have previously had 3 sets of wheels on the car, while running it on the lift today I was able to observe one of my wheels is less than perfect. I put it on the spin balancer and it was fine but when mounted it is not running very true. So that is todays efforts. All suggests, comments are greatly appreciated and will become part of my evaluation. Thanks to everyone..
[Bent axle??? Spacer not machined true ???
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
We changed the axle and bearing no change, removed spacer and it ran smooth. I have gotten a few suggestions on angles for the two piece and previously tried all my thoughts but those that have shafts that are running smooth could I please get you specs? I tried moving the trans and first shaft inline, zero angle, 3 degrees down and then tried to move the pinion nose up to the same 3 degrees up but cant quite get that much "nose up" as I put in as many shims as the bolt length would allow. I have a new adjustable "banana link" ordered and can get there with that but right now am just more interested in success stories of maybe the same and different angles. Now that the wheel spacer is not going nuts I can actually make a change with angles. Thanks
 

Jim Sullivan

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 10
I'm not sure where you started with the pinion angle, but normally the front of the pinion would be pointed down a few degrees.
 

Fathead Racing

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 7
Can we get the full history of your build to give us eyes to these word. :read
Yeah, this is a fixable problem. There is no reason to doubt the engineering of the original two piece driveshaft setup. Lowering or raising the ride height of the car would require a pinion angle change. I would make a bet if the problem is in the driveline it would be pinion angle. Phasing of the ujoints is paramount.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Another full day of working on the rear axle area. Second axle had a bit of flange runout also so changed to another axle, had to change studs etc and also changed the rear center section due to some noise we heard during trouble shooting. I have to put a new bearing on the last axle tomorrow and reassemble. After all that I have plans to look at some of the angle suggestion and see if I can get it smooth. Thanks.
 

1959chevybr

Well Known Member
Jim,
My stock pinion angle was 1 1/2 down. The engine/first shaft is down 3. Normally with a one piece you would want to offset the 3 down on the engine with a 3 up on the pinion, this is where the confusion comes in for me. I have never in a down/down situation, maybe all this works but just different for me. all information is appreciated.
 
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