pinion angles

back when i had a 50/50 setup my pinion did the same thing ....then i realized my top bar mounts were located wrong so i raised the frame mount up to level the bars out @ ride height.... never had a problem after that my pinion stayed between w. a couple of degrees & i ran a 50/50 for almost 3.5 yrs until i decided to take the truck apart.....

If your trans angle is 3 deg downward, your diff should be 3deg upward. The 2 angles shoud equal 0. This is tough with a 2 piece which is what i'm trying to figure out now. From what i've read from the trans to steady bearing should be 0 deg, then the rear shaft from bearing to rear diff be treated like a 1 piece with 0-3 deg downward and the same amount upward at the diff. This info is coming right from inland empire drivetrain.

max fish june 2006- pinion angles should be kept near zero in relation to each other. the reason we would point pinion down a few degrees is to compensate for flex...the thing is that the major detail left out is that it should be one to three degrees pointed down from parallel to the transmission (or the front driveshaft on a two-piece driveline). what that means is the pinion could, under certain circumstances, point up.

check out this issue of mini truckin....very informative.

What would cause snapping u joints? I've snapped 2 on my drive shaft in the last 7yrs. I'm guessing that is due to riding ass down, front up for the first couple years? The last few years riding more parallel throughout I have not had this problem.

thanks guys, but why so many different answers? out of all of the replies i am still seeing differnt information, just like the numerous pinion diagrams that are floating around the net. if i searched for an hour i could probably find a drawing for every possible pinion-trans angle relationship that exists and a description on why its the optimal way. for us all having the same objective we defiantely arent using the same logic for setting angles.

is your driveshaft 1 or 2 piece?

check out airridetalk.com he has a really informtive piece on pinion angles on there.

The reason that no one can agree on it is because it is very much misunderstood. Russ-D is pretty damn knowlegable on it and has done a great job explaining it in the past.

ok, so the pinion could point down or up, as long as it is pointing down a couple degrees from being parallel to the trans?

I am only reffering to a one peice driveshaft

yep!

Here is my $.02 for what it is worth. I have always been told that the rear end should point 2-4 degrees down. Under acceleration with the pinion down, what happens is the pinion gear tries to ride up the ring gear essentially planting the rear tires. as it plants the tires, the rear end rolls up preloading the springs or bushings and coming closer to 0. if it is above cl then your angle gets worse with acceleration. Ask a few drag racers and they will tell you pinion angle is one of the most important tools in getting your car to hook. The more joints you have dosent matter. the rear should always be down. Just make sure that each consecutive joint cancels the previous one. Meaning the joints should always see some angle. What this does is force the joint to take any slop out as soon as the drive shaft starts to turn, which removes driveshaft vibration.