hansshanks

I decided to finally pull the trigger on the tcase swap on my grand cherokee 249 to 242. While i was at it i did the SYE. i built a drive shaft as a experiment to see if i could. I now need to get it balanced. Also some of you more tech savy types. I set the slip joint at middle of the stroke when i set the length with the vehicle setting at ride height. Does mid stroke sound right or does any one have any input?

so i am put a hack n tap on my Grand.



shaft tacked together



now i need the shaft balanced

dave1123

First of all, it doesn't look like your u-joints are indexed correctly. The front and rear yokes MUST be aligned in the same lateral alignment within 1 or 2 degrees or you'll get vibration that cannot be cured. I've built driveshafts before and know from experience. We set the driveshaft up on a surface plate on jo-blocks to align the front and rear yokes BEFORE welding to insure correct alignment. Often if the welding is done correctly, balancing is not even necessary. I don't know if the splines are small enough to correct your misalignment or not, but from the photo, they are not aligned.

hansshanks

Well son of a gun that is good to. I appreciate the info. I giess ill pull this one out and keep it as am emergency spare. And build another one. I have another one in the garage that one only took me a half hour to build. So I recon I can do it again. Funny part was that I had them lined up on tje ground cuz I was balancing the shaft on them while I adjusted them to length and tacled one end. When I put it up under jeep to do the test fit I twisted it a little to get it in the yokes.

Well thank you for helpfull info. I have this drive shaft I stalled right now. And up to 70 no vibration. But it wont hurt to have a spare.

freegdr

Measure its length compressed the grab a donor shaft at local jy or pick and pull ....http://www.myjeepxj.com/useful-infor...aft-infomation

hansshanks

How far in to the sroke of the slip joint should I set it. The drive shaft is a xj front drive shaft. I set the first one up as the middle of the stroke.

dave1123

If your shaft is still only tack welded, you can fix the alignment before finish welding. It looks like your sleeve is a tight fit which is good.

I did a driveshaft for a Chevy truck and after making sure everything was aligned and straight, we rolled it on a forklift's forks and bead welded it with a mig welder. I didn't balance it and it never vibrated. My friends and I also made a custom shaft for a classic hot rod with a Chrysler Torqueflite connecting to a Ford rear with the same result.

hansshanks

Its already welded and been in my jeep for 2 days. It was a very tight fit. I spun it on a pari of jack stands and mig welded it. I did 1/2 inch welds on alternating sides I was a worrying about warping

MCosta

How was doing the transfer case swap? I have a 231 ready to go in (probably doing it next month) Seems like the hardest part is going to be getting to the top bolts out but other than that it seems like an semi-easy but time consuming job...

dave1123

When I pulled the transfer case on my Chevy truck, the hardest part was trying to get it balanced on my jack. I had to build a "nest" out of timber and lag bolts and still had problems getting it aligned to go back in. My bolts weren't much of a problem because GM used an adapter to mate it with the trans. Because of it's odd shape and weight, it was quite difficult to find a balance point.

That was a NP205, I think.

MCosta

Yea I can definitely see the problem there. I think when I helped my brother do his transmission on his '89 ram a few years back we used a tranny jack from one of his buddies who's a mechanic to put the t-case back in and get up in to place. I may have to see if I can acquire that for this lol