It isn't as complicated as it is being made to sound. On a street driven car you do not want the tailshaft pointing straight at the rear end yoke, there has to be an angle to keep the u joints working correctly. In most setups the transmission tailshaft u joint ends up slightly lower than the rear end u joint, so you simply point the transmission down 3 or 4 degrees and then point the rear end u joint up a corresponding number of degrees. On a DRAG car you might want the rear end yoke pointing down, but not on a street driven car. Also, some people worry because the rear end is offset a couple of inches to the side more than the tailshaft centerline. Don't worry about it at all, that is why U joints are put in there, and it is perfectly normal. You can talk to 100 people and get 100 different opinions, but if you just do it as I explained you will have no problems at all. It isn't neurosurgery. Don
Gotcha. So for normal street-driven triangulated 4-link, we're still talking about 3-up 3-down for the pinion/trans relationship. Yes? Sorry to be a PITA, I want to get mine right the first time.
You could hire an engineering firm to look over your setup, or you could just run it the way you have it.... I would run it the way you have it no prob. By following a few simple rules, (which you did), you are not going to have any problems. Contrary to the opinions of some, it ain't exactly rocket science to set up a ds on a driver.
I'm doing a second-gen Camaro into a '50 Chevy. Can I expect more wrap from the stock leaf springs than you'd ordinarily get from springs not intended for a torque tube rearend? It looks like it's okay if it points down some at the yoke with the car on jackstands and no load at all on the springs. Also, I did grab a set of traction bars when I found them cheap, I presume I can use those to control the spring wrap to some extent. They came off a mono-leaf '70s Nova that had been someone's street rod at some distant past time.
I have a 60 Chevy. the engine is 3 down and the front driveshaft is 4 down and the back driveshaft is level and the pinion is 3 down. What should I change. Should the pinion be 3 up?
If you look at most 'modern' leaf spring rear suspensions the pack loading is biased ahead of the spring to help deal with axle wind-up. The torque tube took the brunt of the rotational forces on accel-decel rather than the springs themselves and IF the spring packs that are used on torque tube rearends are symetrically loaded (similar on both sides of the axle) they will not handle spring wrap-up as well as a spring designed for the application. You'd be better off with a set of springs designed for an open drive rear suspension. The traction bars will help but that is a band-aid in this application. One other thing to point out is that lots of older cars used narrow leaf springs. If you're buying/swapping springs its a good idea to go to a 2-1/2" wide leafs and HD/reiforced shakles to take out a ton of side to side sway. Urethane spring eye and shakle bushings help with this even more and the black ones don't look out of place.....just food for thought.
Plenty of guys have run the stock narrow springs going back to the late 50s and not had problems with them, the biggest issue is supposed to be if you pound on the gas you'll get wheel hop - which is cured by the traction bars I already have. Or just not beating on the car. So unless someone who tells me this won't work also pays for some Posies springs or one of the CE or Walton kits, the stock ones are staying put. My only concern is if I have to do more to compensate to keep the pinion angle right, or not, and I suppose I'll find out when I bolt the thing together and set it back on all fours.
K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle with pictures and all http://www.hotrodhotline.com/md/html/drive_shaft_harmonics.php
Sure, it'll work OK as long as the pinion angle is correct. I was just offering up suggestions to make it better than just OK. Don't forget to use the U or J bolts on the front half of the traction bars to help limit downward travel as under hard braking the springs may allow the rearend to rotate enough to dig the traction bars into the pavement.
Oh, I know it's all offered as good advice, and frankly if it drives like **** then I'll do something about it, but right now I'm actually having fun seeing how little I can spend on it and still get it on the road... which all started when I bought that car and another one from the same guy and sold the second car and came out $450 ahead. The springs on it seem to be in good shape, the car hasn't been on the road since 1971. I still have to get some U-bolts to put it together, I was just going to grab some at a parts store but it makes no sense to pay $10 each, the last ones I had made at a spring shop were about half that. (heck, the parts store lowering block kit is $30 and comes with 4 bolts and the blocks!)
Just to clairify, the U-bolts I'm talking about are smaller than the ones used to bolt them to the springs/pad/etc and they mount on a bracket placed toward the front of the ******* bar....maybe 2/3 of the way to the snubber. They are typically double nutted and are along for the ride until you get to the track and then they are used to adjust pre-load. They also serve the purpose I mentioned above. Here's a pic at Jegs..... http://www.jegs.com/i/Lakewood/620/21606/10002/-1
These bars have holes to take two square corner U-bolts ahead and behind the axle perch and there's no other place to put bolts. They came off a monoleaf '71-ish Nova.
Wasn't it an old Mopar drag racing trick to turn the springs around front to rear? Something about it stiffening it up because of the way they were made. Not sure if that pertains to your car model, just something I sort of remember. Don
Yea that was an old racers trick used on a few different cars . You just had to do some measuring and if they were pretty close you could swap the springs around to stiffen up the rear and that would help take care of the wheel hop . would launch a little better too . the thicker multi leafs worked the best . As for the rear set ups , way too many people just love to make things harder than they really are in the first place ! Retro Jim
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