Posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 3:32PM :
In Reply to: Ends don't have to be parallel, can be complementary posted by chris case on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 3:14PM :
I don't know, I've seen that matching angle theory on big lift 4x4's, and the drive line will eventually "whip" and try to re-curve itself. Makes a heck of a lot of noise as it trys to self straighten...= )
Parallel works the best. no matter the angle, up until that 16-20 degrees. My rear driveline on my CJ-5 with a V-8, NP435 and transfer case was only 13". My much longer CJ-7 driveline protest greatly at 4" of lift.
Some of these lift kits are ludicrous, 14" lift, then they lower the running gear down to keep the driveline angles with-in tolerance, pretty much a waste of time if you still have only 9" of ground clearance.
When the shaft centers absolutely cannot be parallel, a CV will help a tad, but they tend to "whip" eventually with a high rate of bearing failure and constant vibration.
I've played with my CJ enough to nail down the maximum angle without dropping the t-case. As little as a 1/2" in altitude will cause or eliminate the vibration. I suspect that the Power Wagon off-set can be much more than a Jeep, given the long length of the driveline. 16 degrees on a 13" driveline might mean only be 4 inches of lift, but on the longer Dodge driveline it could be as much as 14", as long as the shaft centers are parallel.
One thing to remember, it is not enough to align the shaft centers of the t-case and rear pinion, you have to also have that front pinion parallel also, that is where the complimetary thing comes into play, the front and rear pinion shafts must still be parallel, and that sometimes gives the illusion of a different angle because the front driveline is at a greater angle than the rear due to the rearward slope of the drivetrain.
MN