[glarior]

I need to have a driveshaft made for a 49' ford shoebox. The transmission was changed to a 51' (I still have the original but don't know who can rebuild it) Well, the drive shaft is to long now and I need one made. I am not going to cut up the original but the shop can't balance because of the old ujoint style. I have a new rear end yolk that we are going to try and see if it will work/fit.

I was wondering if anyone else has done a similar thing to their drive shaft and what was invovled in updating it.

Thanks

[timothale]

A few times I have been lucky taking a tape measure and the dial calipers to a wrecking yard and finding one that fit There are conversion U joints, one size north south and one size east west And if I have to have one cut down I look for one that has NO balance weights, or very small ones A shaft that has a lot of factory weights on one side will be hard to get back in balance after cutting it. And there only a few spline sizes for the trans. one time I cut down the end of a Ford C 6 yoke to fit the trans on a 401 buick swap I did.

[TurboS10]

I am just curious why you dont want to just cut the original and make it fit the car? Are you planning to go back to original? I have an FMX and 9 inch in my 51. I actually had a spare original shaft I would have given you, but it when to scrap a month ago....whoops.

[glarior]

Originally Posted by TurboS10

I am just curious why you dont want to just cut the original and make it fit the car? Are you planning to go back to original? I have an FMX and 9 inch in my 51. I actually had a spare original shaft I would have given you, but it when to scrap a month ago....whoops.

I planned on putting the original trans/drive shaft back in. Plus the driveshaft place said once they cut it there is no gaurentee for it to be balanced again because they can't hook it up to their machine. So far we are trading out the yolk in the rearend to accept new ujoints. Then we can measure and have one built out of an old drive shaft to save some money.