[GUNTHER19820]

What do you guys think about running the pinion offset about 3" in a street vehicle? I bought a Ford Exploder rear to swap into my 1st gen s-10. Overall length is pretty close, but the ford rear is offset 3"....would this cause any problems?

I believe big rigs do exactly this, to cut down on vibrations and to extend the life of the universals, but is it feasable in a street vehicle?

Also, my truck is a longbed, and I have already replaced the 2 piece driveshaft with a looonnng 1 piece that I had made with 4" tube. The only reason I bring that up is the angle (side to side) should be less severe since the span from the trans to the rear is longer....

 

[joe_padavano]

What do you guys think about running the pinion offset about 3" in a street vehicle? I bought a Ford Exploder rear to swap into my 1st gen s-10. Overall length is pretty close, but the ford rear is offset 3"....would this cause any problems?

I believe big rigs do exactly this, to cut down on vibrations and to extend the life of the universals, but is it feasable in a street vehicle?

Also, my truck is a longbed, and I have already replaced the 2 piece driveshaft with a looonnng 1 piece that I had made with 4" tube. The only reason I bring that up is the angle (side to side) should be less severe since the span from the trans to the rear is longer....

The u-joints neither know nor care whether the offset is side-to-side or up-and-down. Since every car has an up-and-down offset, the side-to-side doesn't matter either. The only issue is floor pan and frame clearance.

 

[GUNTHER19820]

i agree, but I was wondering if the driveshaft spinning on two different angles would hurt the universal....

 

[joe_padavano]

i agree, but I was wondering if the driveshaft spinning on two different angles would hurt the universal....

It's not spinning on two different angles. There's only one offset. It may be straight down, it may be to the right, or it may be at 45 degrees (or some other angle) between the two, but there's only one offset. Since the driveshaft is spinning, the u-joints will see this angle at some point during each rotation of the driveshaft. So long as the trans output shaft and the differential pinion shaft are parallel, the u-joints don't care in which direction they are offset.

 

[GUNTHER19820]

ahhhhhh........
that does make sense now..... :thumbup: