Hey everyone,

Don't know if any of you have been following the my other threads but I bent a rear drive shaft and now I am installing a new (used one).

So...I go the old drive shaft off with a sawsall. Got the new shaft on the yoke and discovered that the bolt pattern on the U-Joint connector is slightly different than that pattern on the flange on the differential. I was thinking about seeing if I could just change U-joints around so the bolts would line up. How hard is that to do? What do I need to do?

The other option is drill the diff flange bolt holes, but I don't want to do that unless I absolutely have to.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

maybe just get one of these.
http://trail-gear.com/toy-flanges.html

 

Holy cow, man...I owe you a beer or something. I knew there were flange spacers for body lifts ect but didn't know there was a universal? This may REALLY save me some work.

So, lemme ask you this though. How would a bolt go completely thru? If my original problem is that bolt patterns are different from the diff flange to the drive shaft U-joint connector, how is this "universal" going to help? Maybe I don't fully understand it yet.

Can you school me?

Thanks!

 

*Update*

On suggestion from swapped89, I ordered a universal diff flange for 25 bucks from Trail Gear. This will be installed on the diff, I should be able to use any drive shaft now (that's the right length from the correct generation) with any of the different bolt patterns.

It should be in this week and I'll post the install results.

 

**Final Update**

Swapped89 had a great idea for me that didnt' work out. I ended up buying a universal diff flange but oddly, the driveshaft I got off a clone of my truck from the junkyard didn't have one of the bolt patterns offered on the universal flange. So, I ended up taking the diff flange off the bent driveshaft and beating out and replacing the flange that came on the "new driveshaft".

She's mint and the "new" driveshaft is well in balance. Thanks to all who replied with help.