WildBlue goes RideTech

[GeoffP]

Geoff, if setup properly I agree with Mako, there should be very little noise coming from it even 4.11's..I think the reason you made the noise better was relief of link binding. With the links under tension (bind) they transfer vibration easier. There are a lot of harmonics going on in a vehicle, all of which when adjusted correctly create music!

I should've included that my brother had the gears installed in the axle about 15 years ago. They were used when he bought them and they were also known to be noisy. The axle had 3.55's in it when he bought it and I personally wish he'd left that gear set in the axle! He was getting into drag racing at the time and didn't care if they were noisy because the big block that was in the car drowned out the gear noise due to the 3" dual Flowmaster exhaust he had installed at the time. You couldn't hear the gear noise at all over the exhaust. I changed the car to something I'd be comfortable driving regularly by adding power steering, power brakes, a/c, etc. Anyway, the gears really are setup correctly, they're just noisy due to a previous setup being wrong and as you know once gears are setup incorrectly and develop noise there's no correcting it without replacing the gear set. I don't have the tools and don't know anyone I'd trust to do a gear change correctly here local so I just haven't fixed it yet. I am contemplating buying the tools and doing the swap myself. I just have to save the money up to do it.

I didn't think the axle was in bind because I checked it by hand by move the axle manually with the center section suspended on a jack as well as articulating the axle straight up and down with the jack when I was assembling everything. I thought maybe the pinion angle causing driveshaft bind might've amplified the sound.

[GeoffP]

Also I wanted to mention that a friend of mine was able to clear up a driveshaft vibration in his car (69 Camaro) by rotating the driveshaft in the yoke 180 degrees because the shaft was slightly out of balance. I'm going to either jack the car up and play with the angle some more tomorrow or drive it over a deep ditch if it stops raining anytime soon so I can lay under the car with it sitting on the ground. I'm going to try to get the angle exact, drive it and then rotate the DS 180 degrees if there's still a minor vibration. After that if it's still vibrating I'm just going to have to get used to it until I can afford a new shaft.

Worst case, I plan to cash in 40 hours of vacation so I can pay someone rebuild the axle and buy a new driveshaft all at the same time thinking I'll switch to 1350 joints at the same time since it shouldn't cost any more.

[makoshark]

I had a custom aluminum driveshaft made with 1350 joints from Shaftmasters.com. Total cost with shipping was $320

[GeoffP]

Worked on it some more this morning. I have extended the lower links a total of 10 turns. I feel like the links are over extended at this point even though they feel solid with the jamb nuts tight so I'm thinking about turning them back in 1 turn because I'm concerned about the link coming apart due to poor thread engagement. The difference between 8 turns out and 10 turns out was minor but noticeable so hopefully 9 total turns out is the happy point (for now). The vibration still feels and sounds like it's there but it's very minor at this point. I'm not a fan of 4.11:1 gears anyway so 3.73's are probably going in whenever I find the cash to rebuild the axle.

I also rotated the driveshaft 180 degrees but it didn't seem to make any difference.

[rchaskin]

..... thinking I'll switch to 1350 joints at the same time since it shouldn't cost any more.

Be careful not to make the trans the fusible link!!

[GeoffP]

Randy I don't think my LS1 clone will produce enough power to tear up the T56 (hopefully)!

[Quickboat]

Worked on it some more this morning. I have extended the lower links a total of 10 turns. I feel like the links are over extended at this point even though they feel solid with the jamb nuts tight so I'm thinking about turning them back in 1 turn because I'm concerned about the link coming apart due to poor thread engagement. The difference between 8 turns out and 10 turns out was minor but noticeable so hopefully 9 total turns out is the happy point (for now). The vibration still feels and sounds like it's there but it's very minor at this point.

I also rotated the driveshaft 180 degrees but it didn't seem to make any difference.

As far as thread engagement of the lower goes, you MUST have at least as many threads as the threaded shaft dia. So with a 3/4 inch shaft you MUST have at least 3/4 of thread engagement. You are askng for disaster if you are less than that.
There may have been a problem with the intial setup 15 years ago and I would not be overly concerned if you are going with new gears anyway.

[GeoffP]

Yep that's what I was thinking - don't want a disaster!

[GeoffP]

I tried to drive my car up to RTMC this past weekend only to have the fuel pump start giving me problems. It kept getting hot and pressure would drop to a point that it wouldn't do anything but idle. It otherwise did well until the pump failed on me. Oh well - I still went to RTMC without the car after a 4 hour detour to get the car back home and had a great time.

[Quickboat]

I tried to drive my car up to RTMC this past weekend only to have the fuel pump start giving me problems. It kept getting hot and pressure would drop to a point that it wouldn't do anything but idle. It otherwise did well until the pump failed on me. Oh well - I still went to RTMC without the car after a 4 hour detour to get the car back home and had a great time.

Why do we love these cars? Gosh, its like loving a snake sometimes.....

[GeoffP]

Yah no kidding! Back to working on it now...Tom Farrington is really helping me out with the new Holley fuel pump from the FI system kit that Deb won last year at the SEMA dinner. (Thanks Tom!!!) I've decided to use the sump'd tank I've got in storage, redo the fuel lines to clean up the installation, and try to figure out the vibration problem I've got - it's not the pinion angle at this point. I've got that part of the vibration adjusted out for sure. I'm going to put a dial gauge on the shaft and pinion yoke to see if I can tell if it's off. It'd be nice to find out the shaft is actually fine and the axle just needs a new pinion yoke. I hope to pull all this off BEFORE RTTH with minimal to no cost if it can be done. After RTTH, the rear axle is coming out and apart. I'm going to try to save up the money to rebuild the center section with new gears and finally get the car truly road worthy.

[GeoffP]

Wow, I just searched to see if I could find any reference to driveshaft length for a 68 Camaro with a T56 and found my VERY FIRST post on Lat-g. Tyler from ATS was the first response with 46.5 inches from center to center. I measured and got the same length so I had my shaft cut to that in Nov 2006, SO my car has been together since then almost 7 years. That's wild - I really didn't think I'd owned the car that long. How time flies! On a side note, I found a PST 46.5" aluminum shaft for $232.83 plus shipping - that seems like a great price. Now I've just got to figure out how to save up the $$$ before RTTH. I have TOO much to do and TOO little time to do it!!!

It's part number PST100465 in case anyone is interested. No yoke is included but I've already replaced the yoke so I can use my new one even though it's not aluminum.

[rchaskin]

Why do we love these cars? Gosh, its like loving a snake sometimes.....

A couple of good long burnouts makes you forget about the gremlins........

[GeoffP]

Very true Randy!

[Quickboat]

A couple of good long burnouts makes you forget about the gremlins........

Had to go there eh Randy? But true..

[Quickboat]

My new wheels...

Though mine will be in satin gun metal, a bit darker... 325/30-19 in back! Hu hu hu!

[GeoffP]

Oooo nice! I'd love to buy custom wheels for mine one day!

I just finished the 6.0L install in my 2003 2500HD tonight. Wrapped up the exhaust so now it needs to go to the exhaust shop to be welded up. The torque difference in the old engine and the new one is amazing. It looks like my planned mods worked!

As far as on topic, I'm going to take a couple nights off from wrenching and plan to replace the fuel pump on WildBlue late Saturday afternoon - planning a trip to the lake! Yay!

[GeoffP]

So I FINALLY got off my tail bone and started working on the fuel system yesterday. Found one gas tank strap almost rusted through so that's got to be replaced. A friend says he can get me one by the weekend so I'm getting that going ASAP. I don't remember if I said that I have an OE tank that was deep sumped by a friend of a friend that was given to me several years ago. I had not planned to use it because I don't like the look of the sump hanging down but it's a cheap solution to my fuel starvation problems (hopefully) so it's going in. I had hoped to mount the pump and filter directly in line with each other but I can't get it to fit in the confines of the area behind the passenger tire so I am having to re-engineer my design for a 3rd time trying to make something functional with as little hose in the mix as possible. Hopefully I'll have it back together before RTTH or I'll be working on it when I get there! Ug...I don't even want to think about that.

[GeoffP]

I got the fuel pump mounted in the new location. I'm not happy with it but it'll work until I can do something better. I tried to get fancy and make a shield for the pump and filter assembly but it doesn't fit so I'll just try something else later.

[GeoffP]

Unfortunately I had a gas tank strap break taking down the old tank. I had everything worked out to pick up the tank straps I ordered from a friend to pick up while I was out of town this weekend only they didn't show up so I'm behind on getting my car back together in time for RTTH. I may end up working on it Thursday night just to have it ready for the autocross on Friday!