I have a Pete&jakes 4-link welded to my new frame ,Now I am ready to weld the brackets to the rear end housing ,I have a jig for welding ,but at what degree of angle ??? some old timers tell me level and others tell me 3 deg. down in front Please help ,Thanks,DUCKMAN
Like 19Forty said, type in and search.............lots of good advice. Short answer, your pinion angle will depend of what the trans angle is..........if it's three degrees down.............the pinion should three degrees up. Hopfully this is at ride height. IMHO
GREAT POST!I agree with "A Chopped Coupe" I would like to add it does not matter if you go 3 degrees down on the trans tail as long as the pinion come up 3 degrees above the center line. The vector lines need to be parallel.
heres how I do it,, I use a digital level, this one can be recalibrated to zero out on a non level surface. now it shows engine level, now go to the rear end and set it on the pinion and make sure your rearend is at ride hieght, adjust accordingly. done!
Take an angle measurement on the tailhousing of the trans. Then do the same on the pinion housing/front of the rear end housing. they shoudl be arranged in such a way that they are parallel. Or, as someone already mentioned if the trans is level then the rear should be level. If the trans points down 3 degrees the rear end should point up 3 degrees. Maybe this image will help.
Remember that you are setting this static no load. If you are using any type of rubber bushing or parrallel leafs the pinion will rotate up under load, so you need to add a little down angle to make up for it. 3-4 degrees is plenty!
Like picture number 2 in VWHammers pics. The angle that is the center line of your crank should be the angle of the rear end. You will have to measure off the output of your tranny for the engine angle, and the input of your diff. for that angle. I "think" what is wrong with pic 1 above is that your u joints are not getting worked. Hope this helps a bit Peter
no hammer, thats not the way to set the rearend up,trans should be level,the 3 degrees down is for when you give it gas the rearend will roll somewhat back to your 0 degrees,when your first image comes into play,ok your half right lol....richie.....
My trans is level and my pinion points down about 3 degrees is this acceptable? I've got buggy spring and ladder bar rear. Nick.
Horseshit, compounded by Bullshit!!! The pinion angle should always be 3 degrees up, unless you are building a 600 horsepower drag machine with 16" slicks. In that case there will be enough frame and spring deflection to bring the pinion angle up under extrememly hard launches. For a street driver it is always 3 degrees up!!---Brian
Nope, sorry, will cause vibrations and u joint wear. Have you ever checked the pinion angle on any factory rear drive vehicle? If your building a 600+ hp drag car with slicks the correct pinion angle is 0 degrees, and the crankshaft centerline should be pointed directly at the pinion. Why do pinion angle threads always end up a pissing match?
your full of shit brian,you keep running 3 up and you'll be replacing your u joints,as soon as you let the clutch out the rearend trys to roll up.......richie...........
Brian,I've only tacked the spring brackets to the axle, so I can change the angle. So if my trans is level, is this okay with 3 degrees upwards on the axle, or will I have change this to 3 degrees down?THIS HAS ALWAYS CONFUSED THE FUCK OUTTA' ME!!!!!!!
I hate these threads. The trans doesn't have to be level, three degrees is not the only correct answer, the driveshaft should NEVER be inline with the trans or pinion centerline, it goes on and on. Chassis level and trans level don't mean anything. You have to establish a relationship between the trans and the pinion. Best case, the angle at the front u-joint will be equal and opposite to the angle on the rear u-joint. A u-joint MUST have some angle of deflection or it will fail. Get it from the pros: http://www.iedls.com/guide.html
hey shotrod,me and tinman just told you how to set it up,if you want to listen to brian so be it...richie............
Thank you, and for the record 3 degrees down is no the only correct answer, but it usually works out pretty close. and on a street car no the driveshaft shouldnt be a straight line, but on a drag car the rules are different
Sorry Guys, but you have it totally wrong. The pinion centerline should be parallel to the centerline of the output shaft on the transmission when the car is fully loaded. This does not mean that they should be in line with one another, only that they should be parallel to one another. If they are dead nuts in line with one another, then you will possibly get into wear on the needle bearings in the universals, but in a conventional car or hotrod that doesn't happen. I've been building hotrods and driving them daily for over 40 years, and never had a u-joint nor driveshaft failure.
As I said I'm confussed, I set the thing up as you say is correct as this is what I thought also, but others have told me that this is wrong too! Nick.
Well I've only been doing it for 15 years professionally, and when I do it we are putting 1500 plus horsepower to a big assed set of tires, to a surface covered in glue with no slip (hopefully) and the only failures I have had is from the tube exploding, or the ring and pinion giving up. There are many ways of doing this, but I know that mine works under the absolute worst conditions you can have. Truce? no need for another my dog is bigger than your dog thing. And yeah my dog is probably bigger than yours.
These threads are always hilarious. What is it about Pantera Concerts and pinion angle threads that make dudes want to beat each other? Go out and measure a couple stock late model pickups and see what you find...
This pinion angle shit is sorta like the question "How high is up!!!" When you build a rod, conventional wisdom is that you mount the engine so that the top of the intake manifold is level in the frame. If you do this, ALL V8 engines are designed with a 3 to 3 1/2" "down" angle on the tranny to make less of a hump in the passenger compartment floor. The angle of the pinion in a street driven car should be 3 to 3 1/2" up to match this. HOWEVER--If its level to 5 degrees up, it will probabbly run forever. If you have a model A frame with a tremendous Z in the frame and the rearend sets up higher than the tranny, then it should still be 3 to 3 1/2 degrees pinion up----UNLESS this puts it dead nuts "in line" with the tranny output shaft. In that case, I would crank a couple of degrees down on the pinion shaft, purely to avoid burning up needle bearings in the universal joint.
Brian has it right, but so does Scotty. The whole pinion down thing is a myth that was somehow perpetuated until now, I have fixed so many pinion down setups that I cannot remember them all.
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