ATrain1

I guess it just had to much power for the drive shaft, which shattered my transmission case. I am now having a custom drive shaft made, and getting a turbo 350 with trans brake, and full manual reverse valve body.043.jpg044.jpg033-1.jpg038.jpg

oldcutlass

So apparently what happened is the rear ujoint failed and then the rest of the mayhem took place. You did a good job on that drive shaft.

Run to Rund

You probably need a new companion flange on the differential also. It would be a good time to upgrade to 3.5" or 4" tubing and Spicer 1350 universal joints (or the similarly sized Olds joint, not the small 1310 chevy joint, if that is what you were using.

ATrain1

I do not think so, the U-joint is still on the rear end. I believe the ear on the drive shaft broke after the shaft ripped through the floor, and exhaust system.

ATrain1

It is at the shop right now getting a drive shaft to handle the 500 ft pounds of torque. I am not sure what they are doing. This did not happen while I had the car, so I am not exactly sure how it happened.

Rickman48

That last comment deserves an explaination - c'mon, what're we supposed to do, GUESS??

ATrain1

Sorry I took the car in to have some warranty work done, and a have the carb tuned. The story I got was this happened at 30 MPH when they took it to get gas. It is at a place that treats me right and that I trust, so I dont know. Also the owner who treats me very well, and has done a lot of my work was not there at the time.

ah64pilot

Now you've got my curiosity peaked...subscribed and waiting for explanation

ATrain1

What do you mean?

ah64pilot

Sorry, my post took me a while to write because I'm watching the Texans / Jets game...I meant I was curious how that happened without you present.

Is the shop going to pay for the repair? I'm sorry, but cruising down the road doesn't twist a driveshaft like that. There was stress on it to make it twist and then that broke the U-joint. I don't believe the U-joint breaking first would have torn the driveshaft in 2 places like it did.

JMO, someone was hot rodding your car.

ATrain1

They are giving me a big break on most of the labor (the stuff that is not covered under warranty) I have to pay for the drive shaft and transmission. I was giving the option of getting a free case, and me rebuilding the transmission myself. I chose to go with a new transmission cause mine had burnt clutches, and I am only paying 800.00 for a TH350 with trans brake and full manual reverse valve body. The drive shaft is running me 250. All the damage it caused is being fixed for free, and they are hooking me up with a lot of other work I wanted. They are redoing my exhaust do to it being rigid mounted, lowering the front 2 inches, and building me a custom air dam to help with my running hot problem. There is some other stuff as well that I can not think of. I know I am having them tip the exhaust out of the back, to help quiet the car down as it is way to loud. I am kind of thinking this was under a hard load and hooked up, it shattered my bell housing. The car had a B&M turbo 350 with a 3800 stall. Now I do know that my trans was going to go out, it had a nice hard shift into 2nd gear, but not so great into 3rd. When I serviced the trans there was a lot of clutch material in the pan, which I believe is from the transmission stacking shifts. When you manually shift it you could go through all the gears, when you leave it in drive it almost skips 2nd gear and goes into 3rd. Any thoughts? Also any thoughts on how I should approach the owner? I think he already knows as he has been doing this for over 30 years. Now my car is slow compared to what is up there, mine probably is the only car under 1000 HP. So why would they hotrod mine when they are used to 1000-1500 HP cars?

bccan

I had a nearly identical looking driveshaft, severed bellhousing on trans case, exhaust, etc when my driveshaft(u joint/yoke or sumthin) let go in the traps @ over 100 mph the first time I went to a track rental a few years ago.

The hell of it was I had a new shaft being built but he was behind, it showed up Monday after my stock one let go on Friday!

ATrain1

I am just trying to figure out if there is anyway possible this could have happened at 30 MPH? Now I did try to heat the tires up and load up on the stall a couple days before, when I did the tires put up a good fight before they broke loose (Just bled the brakes and had to get the stall up) Normally this thing has no traction what so ever. The car tried doing a 360 on me with the locker that is in it, so I let out of it. I did load up to about 3200 RPM and launched it, feathering the gas to hook it up, let out a 93 mph. I am wondering if maybe I started it and it did break the way they said it did? Or if I started the damage and someone was getting on it? It has 275/40/17 tires on the back, and does not hook up very well as far as I know, but I have only tried a couple of times. It did seem like when I power braked it the tires did try to hook up after heated, I am just running regular street tires for now. I just mainly want to know if a drive shaft could be the cause of a cracked bell housing at 30 MPH? Getting hung up on stuff under the car. It ripped through the floor and my 3 inch exhaust system.