shortening driveshaft....

hey,
k well im putting a ext cab bed on my standard cab truck, now to the problem... im going to have to shorten the drive shaft around 7 inches... my worrys are about the angle of the u-joint right underneath the back of the cab.... im doing either a 2-link or lower bars and upper revers shorter bars, so that i can the the pinion angle the better at the drive shaft....any help would be great....am i goin to have problems? should i make it a single drive sahft?is there any ways around it?? thanx....

Ive seen the truck in BC i beleive it is, and the guy put a ext cab bed on his truck to, anyone seen this? anyone noe what he did? thnx again guys anything will help....

keep in mind some mazda pick-ups came with 1peice driveshafts (yea blare you're gay)

it would be a lot easier to work with a 1peice shaft since you can only shorten itself, rather than choosing to shorten the 1st or 2nd shaft. Plus it would also be easier to setup your pinion.

but if you want to stick with the 2peice, shorten the 2nd shaft so you dont have to move the carrier bearing assembly. what i would do also since you are using a 2link is that try to mount the 2link bars as close to the carrier bearing as you can, so it will not shove it in unlike the stock leaf perch mounted 2links

at the stock position of the carrier bearing assembly, you'll feel vibration at starting from stand still no matter what link setup you have because the 2nd shaft angle is so high when the truck is layed out, i know mine sits at about 15-25degrees when im layed out with reference to the 1st shaft, that is really bad. what you can do is move the carrier bearing assembly up to lessen the angle, and to make up for the changed angle in the 1st shaft, shim up the tranny end (I.E. move the carrier up 2inches, move the tranny up half inch, this will set your 1st shaft angle near zero, this lessens the angle change at the carrier ujoint caused by the 2nd shaft moving up and down, the 2nd shaft angle will drop to less than 10degrees layed out, compared to the typical 20something degrees

had a 2link and 4link, both only vibrated when i started to move from stop at a really low height, pretty much half inch off the ground, the 4link vibrates less because the pinion was good on the axle ujoint, but it's all the carrier bearing being at a really bad angle causing it to bind where the vibration comes from

sorry for the book

How do you shorten a drive shaft? Cut and reweld? Or is this a job for professionals

send it out to the driveshaft shop it has to be rebalanced...

k, mark, you sound like you noe what your talking about....lol....where do i find a one peice driveshaft? what trucks did they come in?? im mainly worried about the rid height drive, when im slammed is a different story, but i just dont want to be replacing ujoints everyweek......so it doesnt matter what type of link setup i use right?? all thats going to happen is the agnle between the first and second shaft is going to be to large right??sorry again but can you try explaining they tranny relocation deal again, im slightly confused....thanx again man!!

pretty much you got it right, raising the tranny end and the carrier assembly just requires some fabbing, but shouldnt be too hard, ill pm you about it.

but the single peice driveshafts, i couldnt tell you which trucks have them, just look around at junkyards and such

ya i dunno how the hell my one piece got on there

bcause i think if i were to get a 1 peice it would be better for my truck.... if i move the tranny up AND the anger bearing wont that make that angle bigger???between the first and second shaft????

Im sure they can just make you a whole new drive shaft instead of finding a used one.