I am installing a 351 in the 54 Customline. I am finding the occasional 87 Vic/Marquis, But the older ones ( 86 and older) seem to never show up. Been looking locally for over a year now. Does the driveshaft change length in 97. Or is that the first year of the aluminum offering. I really dont want to spend over $300 to have one built...Thanks for any info...Jim
I've helped guys with that swap over the years I found that trick on my own. Here in Phoenix they have an all Ford Parts Salvage about 1 1/2 miles straight down from my place so after getting the info on the web how to measure your drive shaft off I went with my tape measure the Ford salvage had all their shaftd already out and stacked in a bin with tags to I.D. what they fit and also spray painted on the shaft.I knew I wanted a shaft with a front yoke that was for AOD/C4 then I took it to a local drive line shop for a conversion U-joint for the rear and BINGO she fits! Knowing that the C4 & AOD are the same overall length and that 1952-56 Fords have the same length drive shafts everything fell into place. Now what is another alternative you ask? If you still have the original '54 drive shaft you could try to find a conversion U-joint to adapt the later style front yoke and the rear would bolt up to the stock rear. If later you do a rear end upgrade you would install the matching later U-joint.
So since most salvage yards have Hollander Manuals they should be able to look up what interchanges. You can check out the videos on youtube where they show how to cut a drive shaft so if you find a shaft that is too long you could cut it and weld on the '54 rear yoke.
Bought one from these folks: http://www.pstds.com/ It was about $150 to the door. Called them and they guided me through their measuring process.
I went to pick a part to look for driveshafts and found they use a big forklift to move the cars around. Guess what, EVERY car I looked at had a bent shaft!
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