haloman

Here was the thought I had. If you replace the stock stuff shouldn't the parts be easier to find than if you twist a custom one piece driveshaft sled pulling?

TxDiesel007

Not at all

when the driveshafts have been discontinued.. hence why im lookin after market..

Rick

Dave88LX

Truck/Trailer shop, call around.

getblown5.9

the groaning noise when slowing down...think its a ujoint or the bearing on the shaft.

all the joints seem tight, im still chasing these noises.

kawi600

Those noises sound an awful lot like bearings to me too.
Have you looked on the magnet in the pumpkin to see if theres any metal shavings?

getblown5.9

will be checking on friday when i pull the covers to inspect and change fluids. if i have to rebuild the rear its getting an ARB in it. i have the onboard air, i might as well get the locker for pulling

totalloser

My POS stocker with PLASTIC coated splines on the slip has given me endless problems. The plastic (powder coat) started peeling up on the male end of the splines and binding up the slipshaft. This caused the driveshaft to stuff the carrier bearing out of it's support bushing. Traction bars helped for a while, and eventually I got tired of dealing with it and machined a custom pillow block bearing (drill tap housing for OE bolt pattern, and bore ID from 1.5" to 40mm-.001")

But the plastic continued to come apart. I scraped off all the loose powder coat, and now the slipyoke on the second piece is sloppy enough that it throws the d/s out of balance and causes u-joint bind. so I'm planning on trying a single piece. I'll be cutting the yokes of the OE shaft lathe turning them off the pipe, and welding in a new pipe. This will use the stock slipshaft at the transfer case tail housing, and stock joints. The shaft can be balanced on the rig with a grease pencil and the axle on stands.

If this works out, I'll update.

totalloser

I wish I could convey the silly dance I just did! I just buttoned it up and it was not too hard, and I got lucky... well maybe not complete luck, I was pretty careful with the fit up... but it doesn't vibrate and I haven't even balanced it yet!!!

Sooo... Here's the pertinent info; I cut the yokes off my stock rear shaft (diff end) leaving enough tube to grab in the lathe. Cut off the weld and tube to give me the ends to make my one piece. THIS MATERIAL IS TOUGH. I suspect 4130 chromoly steel for the OE shaft. 3.5" OD, but only .083" thick (no, I didn't misplace the decimal) I couldn't find any CM locally in that large, so I rethought it.

The yokes have a machined surface for the 3.5" CM seamless to sit on, but there is also another machined surface further up. Danged if I didn't forget to write down the measurement, but I think it's about 3.560".

So since 3.5" schedule 40 nominal (pipe) erw is 4" outside diameter, and 3.548" ID it makes a very good candidate for a single piece. Easier to weld than thin wall CM tubing, and though about 25 pounds heavier or so, it's a LOT stronger. Not only because of the diameter, but also the thickness, which handily makes up for being weaker than chromoly steel. .226" wall versus .083" wall.

I marked the low points on the yoke to notch out about 1/2" so the weld would be where it should be. If you look at the yoke, you'll see what I mean.

So first yoke centered/tacked. Checked for angle etc and fully welded. Second centered, phased (lined to other yoke) checked, checked and checked again for true-out of phase with the other yoke is BAAAAD. Buzzed it up, used the OE transfer case slipshaft.

I measured the u-joint center at the diff to the slipshaft at the xcase with it pulled back about 1" from the boot on the seal (see note below) and came up with about 70". The yokes sit about 1.75" from the u-joint center to the shoulder the pipe rests against, so I cut the pipe at 66.5" (70"-1.75"-1.75"). I think maybe I could have made it 1/2" longer but I was paranoid that I'd have the slipshaft nail the tailshaft seal during launches due to axlewrap.

Note below: mine's a 241HD, if you don't have the PTO plate you'll probablly just have a seal, so maybe a little more room is good. If my slipshaft hits the boot it's no big deal because it still has a way to go before damaging the seal.

But in short it fixed my problem, and wasn't too hard. Probably entirely possible to skip the lathework and just grind the weld down a bit. Or maybe turn the weld to fit the erw better-self alligning with notch for the erw weld.