Re: WM300 driveshaft question


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Posted by Clint Dixon on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 1:06PM :

In Reply to: WM300 driveshaft question posted by Kevin on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 1:35AM :

Imagine your truck sitting on jack stands with the tires off of the ground. Also imagine an axis that travels through the length of the rear drive shaft and also a separate axis that travels through the length of the pinion gear that is located in the rear axle third member housing. The lengths of both of these axis extend indefinitely on both directions and are not located on a common plane, but are angled to one another. This angle changes with rear suspension travel.

Now, imagine a plane perpendicular to, and intersecting with, the pinion axis at the exact point where the drive shaft connects to the lower output yoke on the transfer case.

If you were to weld up the u-joint, at the axle end of the drive shaft, so that the u-joint will no longer flex, the angle between the pinion axis and the drive shaft axis would now remain constant. Disconnect the drive shaft from the transfer case, and by turning the rear wheels, the drive shaft will flail around as it rotates. The end of the shaft now disconnected from the transfer case would be following a circular path located on the aforementioned plane that is perpendicular to the pinion axis. If this plane were paper, and the drive shaft were a pencil, the circular path of rotation would be drawn as a circle on the paper.

If the imaginary welds on the rear u-joint were broken, the u-joint would now be allowed to flex again and the angle between the pinion axis and drive shaft axis could be altered. If this angle were to be altered in such a way that the "pencil lead" was now located anywhere within the drawn circle, then you have in effect decreased the angle of the two axis. Alter the angle so that the "pencil lead" is located anywhere outside of the drawn circle and the angle between the two axis increases.

It should become clear from the imaginary experiment described above, that the emergency brake output flange on the WDX-WM300 transfer case is located well outside of the "drawn circle". I would guess the location of the brake output flange, in relation to the drawn circle, on most WDX-WM300 POWER-WAGONS would be anywhere from 6 to 12 inches. Attaching the drive shaft to this output flange would have the same effect as raising the ride height of the rear of your truck by 6 to 12 inches. This is a lot of increase on the working angles of the u-joints even for a drive shaft of this length. Of even greater concern is in the inherent design of the drive shaft itself. These POWER-WAGONS used Detroit yokes and universal joints. These original parts were not designed to work at the operating angles of some of the parts supplied by other driveline companies.

Will it work? I don't know. But this is something to keep in mind.

Clint




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