While cleaning and refurbing the driveshaft in the Hooptie I found the front yoke was pretty hacked up. It had some deep scratches and gouges in it so I found a replacement at the wrecking yard. I tried to find a complete shaft but this one is 60 inches long and nothing at the yard was even close so I settled on just the yoke. Cleaned it up and installed it and it looks nice if I do say so myself, but the driveshaft has a rubber coupling in it. I have only encountered this once before but it must be somewhat common. First time I saw this was while putting a big block 403 and TH-400 in my Camaro. I needed to shorten that driveshaft so burned all the rubber out and welded the rear yoke into the, now empty, end. This one is the right length so still intact. Is it just a vibration reducer? How strong is it? Should I find a solid shaft to replace it? Opinions welcome.

The old yoke. Makes you wonder what the support bushing in the old trans looked like dunnit. The scoring was about 90° offset so it doesn't look like vice marks from changing the u-joints. They were still factory with the injected plastic holding them in. The world may never know...






Took almost two hours with a wire brush in the angle grinder to get the driveshaft clean enough to paint. It turned out fairly nice. It has lots of greasy fingerprints on it but they can be wiped off. The scratches from rolling it around while installing the u-joints may get some touch-up. Then again, it may not.






A bit of a dent in the tube behind the rubber joint but that shouldn't hurt it.

 

I have not been a big fan of the in out drive shaft

 

The rubber isolated driveshaft was used on most Oldsmobiles with AT. Why didn't you just replace the yoke instead of the whole driveshaft?

 

I don't like the dents in the shaft.

 

That is what I did, Joe. I looked for a complete driveshaft but they didn't have anything 60 inches long. Not one piece anyway. It only cost me $10 for the yoke so I cleaned it up and shortened it.

 

Ah, sorry, I missed that.