Drive Line Angle

Guys, need help here.

Engine: sits angled down toward rear at 5 Degrees
Drive shaft: sits at zero angle
Pinion: Sits angled down toward engine by 1 degree

Should I try to lower the front of the engine a few degrees, I likely can fairly easy, or I could shim the rear end to look up a few degrees or do you think it is close enough as is?

Thanks

 

Probably could just raise the pinion a few degrees.

 

Rule of thumb is 180 degrees from each other,will it work with what you got probably! Try it the worst that can happen is you'll have to put a u-joint in

 

Take the rear end up a few degrees.

Don

 

pinion should be angled up 5 degrees to match the engine. I run the same angles on my caddy, super smooth running.

 

Sorry, just reprocessed it and raising the pinion alone wouldn't really work out. It would make the front angle more extreme and you can only drop the engine so far. Hmmm.

 

I've always heard the output shaft of the trans and the pinion should be parallel, except in some drag-racing applications. Not directly in line with each other...just parallel. And that it's good to have some misalignment...that is, the output and the pinion on different planes, so that the u-joints pivot back and forth as designed, to distribute the grease. I would raise the pinion. It's now pointing down at 1 degree from horizontal, correct?...so up about 6 degrees to match the angle of the engine/trans.

Whatcha working on, Brian?

 

Btw...is the carb level with the engine/trans at 5 degrees? I think they're usually level at about 3. You may consider lowering the engine to get it to 3, and raise the pinion up 4 from where it's at now to make it the same.

 

Its simple, if the ****** points down three degrees, the pinion points up three degrees, meaning they are paralell. If not, say the pinion points down as does the ******, the pinion u joint has to turn farther and faster to go through its rotation than the ****** u joint, you'll get a vicious hum in the car and it will eat rear joints on a regular basis. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks guys.

I think I will do two things.
1) lower the front of the engine some. I think I can get it to three, maybe two degrees down angle
2) Raise the pinion about 4 degrees.

This should get everything really close.

I am not getting any noticable vibration, but don't want any extra wear either.

Thanks again

 

Don't for get that if the ****** tailshaft is centered side-to-side and the rear end pinion isn't (which it won't be if the pumpkin is centered in the rear end), you've got your slight equal angles needed for u-joint bearing lubrication. Still need to ***ure the vertical angles are equal for reasons stated in other posts, but they can be zero if you have some horizontal offset.

 

I hope this may help. I have it in a file and run a copy every time I do any drive line work. So far, no issues or problems.
Normbc9

 

OK, I think I got it done.

Engine now sits at zero
Pinion now sits at zero
Drive shaft sits at 3 degrees up from pinion

I think that should do it...yes?

 

Yup, as long as that does not cause any issues with the carburetor(s), you are good to go.

 

By "engine" do you mean the carb base? The driveshaft doesn't care where the carb sits. You need to have the ****** output (the centerline of the crank and transmission) be at the same/opposite angle as the pinion. If you had the engine/trans at 3 degrees down before, your best fix would have been to tilt the pinion up to 3 degrees.

And, Normbc9's drawing is actually wrong. The BEST way to have the driveshaft setup is with a couple degrees in each end. This keeps the grease flowing. If the driveshaft is absolutely in line with the crank and the pinion it will never move the U-joints, and they will wear little ridges (brinelling) under each roller bearing inside them.

.

 

Bang on. Good to go.