you guys ever fling a driveshaft while driving down the road??

I haven't thrown one yet. I must be driving too softly.

 

65 Super Sport doing 70 on the freeway, heard a bang and saw parts dancing across the roadway in the rear view mirror, took me a minute to determine what was missing under the car, found 3 pieces of it off the shoulder, no serious damage to the car. This was one of the shafts that had a rubber isolator in it at the back end, and one of the places it broke was right where the rubber ended inside.

 

Not me,but I've passed a vehicle sitting on the side of the road,then shortly,a guy walking with a beat up driveshaft on his shoulder.

 

This Happend Coming home from work in my Daily Driver 92 Gmc Sierra.
I was only going about 40km/25mph. Luckily.
3 Blocks from my house to....
Luckily I had a spare.
Aluminum Drive shaft , Devloped some corrosion under the Carbon Fibre Covering.
Made a hell of a mess

I guess I win I'm the only one with Pics HA

 

Back in the late 60's, New England Dragway, Nationals, due to the rain the night before they were running trials until the track dried out. I got to drive my buddy's 55 Chevy. Half way down the track the front U-Joint let go and the drive shaft dropped down and dug into the pavement, lifting the front of the car at a crazy angle. We had a drive shaft hoop but it was closer to the rear end and was made of chain (I know, but the car made it past tech). After digging up a groove, they had to closed down for the remainder of the day and repave. The last thing I remember, was some big shot racer saying, "that's what happens when you let kids race on the track".

 

I had a 57 Pontiac, that someone had changed over to a stick shift; using a later Chev 3-speed. I took off in this one day and ran it thru the gears, I'm doing about 60 when the front u-joint came loose. This was back in about 1964. Here I am driving down the road and the next minute, the back of the car starts to go airborne; then I see the transmission and other parts in my rear view mirror bouncing down the road.

 

That repair looks fine.

 

Hasn't every one. Fronts are the most fun.

 

Duct Tape fixes anything........

 

pogo stick ride not a lot of fun !! tore up the trany and the rear end my old 55 chevy

 

I had just got back to Ontario from The Leadsled Spectacular in Holland Michigan in My 49 Merc. I was three blocks from our home garage when I spit the driveshaft out right in front of my friends trucking yard. I was able to coast the car right into my yard, when I stopped there was Murray with the driveshaft in his half ton truck laughing his ass off. Ruined the shaft but it was a stock Granada shaft though, no biggie! Always bought new U-joints after this build, ha,ha....

 

I was 17 yrs old in my 54 Chevy Pickup with a 283 attached to a muncie 4 spd and hurst shifter.Going down hill really fast,downshifted from 4th to 1st...Oops,BANG!! I thought that f'n driveshaft was going straight thru the floor. Fortunatly.only needed new u-joints to fix it. Thank goodness I had Auto shop class in school.

 

'71 SS350 Camaro - day after I got my license, 5,000 rpm tranny drop, BOOM! ripped it in two about 6-inches from the axle. Young & severely dumb.....now I'm just older.

'79 Cherokee Chief - pitched the front shaft @ 60 - BOOM & Fire (smacked the tranny - was Quadratrac full-time 4wd)

Stuff happens.

 

i had a bagged s-10 and driving uphill i lost all power and heard a boom.the e-brake didn't work so i let out the bags so the tires rubbed and the truck wouldn't roll down hill. looked underneath and the driveshaft was half-out. fixed it and sold the truck. no more minitruckin.

 

Brand new $600 2-piece driveshaft in our '61 Buick Skylark went by-by one day. II was driving about 65 on a hot summer day, the AC was kickin', traffic was light, the new exhaust was my radio, everything was perfect. Then I decided to get on it. I floored it, it was going great, then BANG!!!!!

It sounded and felt like someone hit the underside of the car with a 20 pound sledge. It hit so hard that it shattered the original factory underdash AC unit, ripped a hole in the floor, smashed the shit out of my brand new exhaust.


After all of the drama something good came out of all of this. My wife has always wanted a straight front axle car so we tore her Buick apart and dropped in a 401 Nailhead and big rear axle with a transverse front axle.

So, I'm hoping by this summer the Buick will be rolling down the road again. This time with a driveshaft loop!!



That's my story.




BloodyKnuckles

 

I had one drop on me while I was pulling out of a drive but it caused no problems.My uncle,,though,was going down the road and lost the first u-joint on his old jalopy many years ago and it dug up in the road and flipped his car.In the old days guys were tough so he walked away.

 

I had it happen in my '56 Ford, except it wasn't the u joints. I had pulled out of the local hangout and my friend pulled up beside me and we both took off. When I hit second the there was a loud noise and I coasted to the liquor store. It twisted the driveshaft into, it looked like a can of bisuits the way it unraveled. I went and got a spare from home and put it in. Then I found out I took out the transmission too.

 

I had a concrete removal company a few years back, i was driving my 78 ford one ton dump truck up a very steep rural driveway to dump a load of broken concrete in a ravine, i'm about a 100 feet up the dirt driveway and the front yoke lets loose. The engine instantly revs and the shaft hits the bottom of the floor over and over, as i start sliding back down the driveway, then the carrier bearing comes loose (two piece driveshaft) and wraps up the ebrake cables locking up the rear brakes and i can't steer or stop. I slide out into the road and just miss a car driving by. The truck is now stuck in the middle of the road, so i crawl under it and remove the shaft from the rearend, it's a 100 degrees out and the pavment is like fire, push the truck to the roadside and $280.00 later i was back in business literaly.

 

Not as much drama for sure but it was fun anyway. During the second gas crisis I was driving a 70 Opel Kadett that I cobbled together from junkyard parts. Slow as molasses but 35 mpg with 40 gallons on board. I was out carousing with my friends in the city and started driving home around 3 am. Driving up the 59 St bridge the teeth on the front yoke strip out (these Opels had torque tube rear ends). So there I am, dead in the water. I get out and push the car up the hill of the bridge till I could coast down the other side. Coasted down and made it quite a ways, then parked it and crashed at a friend's house in Queens. Got a ride home, grabbed a spare transmission, and fixed it. Lots of good times in that old rust bucket.

 

4x4 78 Bronco doing about 30 mph. It being a 4x4 the front yoke was a bolt in. It slapped the floor a few times and walked into the frame and grabbed the fuel line and tail light wires. Wrapped them around the shaft and it was hung up in the frame channel.
I patched the fuel line and unbolted the rear shaft and droppe dit in 4 wheel and drove it home.

 

I was about 15-16 a buddy of mine had an early nova, don't remember what year
but 62-65 body style 6 cyl powerglide there was a rumbling and squeaking for a while, just weren't smart enough to know what it was, any way it was the front ujoint as we hit the railroad tracks at about 60 the driveshaft dropped it felt like the car pole vaulted straight up, then came crashing down. I really know how high it went but between the jump on the tracks and the driveshaft falling it was pretty wild

 

Hey boys 1100 feet first run new motor and rear suss. pullin like a cat and "POW" in my 58 yrs have I never popped a drive shaft one big bag and gone you should a seen the 1/4 steel hoop shure glad I had one well I found the weakest point also took out the back of a new 727 up dates for this years season..... hey it was still pullin too...

 

You ever seen a front wheel drive F-250? Well that's what you get when your 4x4 F-250's u-joints go out and you wreck a driveshaft.

We owned our tree service at the time, had to keep pulling the stump grinder around, did pretty well.

 

Was going up to burlington VT today for a tattoo appt. driveshaft on my O/T truck dropped straight from the truck on 91 kicker is i just put new u joints and was questioning a ear being bent sure as shit ear snapped causing hell...didnt get the tattoo... wierd how this was on the first page

 

Back in highschool I learned to neutral drop my 69 f250 right after I pulled a bunch of the rear leaves. After the first grenaded U joint and yoke, I never fixed the pinion angle, but it spat out the driveshaft 4 or 5 times.

Man I was dumb kid.

 

I have not pitched one yet But i have been in the back seat when one lets go at the rear. That will pucker your ass!

 

Well, I guess it's kinda a driveshaft story but I can remember a being a young lad and driving down the road with my parents in the typical family Caprice station wagon when a giant carpet rug blew out of the bed of the pickup truck in front of us. There was no time to swerve so my father drove over the rug and our station wagon immediately sounded like a helicoptor! Yep, that carpet just wrapped itself tightly around the driveshaft and was whipping against the floopan! I remember crawling under the car with my father helping him as he cut it off with a knife. What are the chances?!

 

I dropped one out of my Pontiac for the week I actually drove it about 13 years ago. Made a lot of noise and I chalked it up to being young and not really having a good idea on how to install u-joints. It was nice my car has an X-member that acts like a driveshaft loop. This also led to my first experience with flat towing with a tow rope, bad idea with so-so brakes.

Saw a lot come out of oval trackers when I was a racer and track official, the rule was you had to paint your driveshaft white so people could see it on the track if it came out. I liked the rule so much I decided to paint the Pontiac's white as sort of a reference to my racing days. Installed it this week and it looks super cool against black floor pans!

 

That happened to my son in his 65 Impala.Pretty hot motor.He was street racing another guy and bang.He backed off on the throttle at about 70mph.It actually twisted the shaft and fractured it.

Yoke and unis stayed intact.He was lucky it tore apart closer to the rear and didn't spear into the ground.Gave him a fright and a lesson learned.

 

The first time it happened I was in my '64 f250 4x4, lucky I was going slow cause it dropped off the transfer case. No bad damage just a new u-joint. My friend was right behind me so I didn't even have to walk to the autoparts store. The second time it happened it was a little worse. I was driving my beat up hulk of a '77 highboy with a fully loaded trailer hauling some scrap for my father-in-law. I wasn't too smart in this senerio, when I left his house I had a feeling that there was something wrong but figured I would take care of it later. Well I was about half way to the scrap yard going through a little rural town that did happen to have a autoparts store, but I didn't stop even though the vibrations from the rear driveline at this point were getting pretty bad. Well I made it about 5 miles past the autoparts store when the u-joint finally gave out and the driveline hit the ground. I was probably going about 55mph. But luckily the driveline was still usable, but I still had to make the 10 mile round trip to the autoparts store that I had passed up and back to the truck to fix. But to make it worse, I realized when I got back that I had taked my tool box out of the back of the truck to make room for scrap. So I had to put the U-joint in with nothing but a pocket knife and what ever I could find on the side of the road. Well the lesson I learned from these embarasments was that you should always grease your u-joints, they will last a lot longer if you do.