VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 Drive shat bushing

Hello again from Australia,
Recently I posted a question concerning a drive shat bushing for my 47 & 48 Chevs.
I would like to thank Chevgene, Jack39rdstr and Kaygee for their helpful advice.
I now know a lot more about this subject than I did before. The solution is to insert an Oakie bushing and seal after removing the old front seal and to this end I was fortunate to be able to get one from the Filling Station, their last one in fact. But there it ends, I cannot find anywhere else that sells them, not even Chevs of the 40's who are out of stock.
So once again I am asking for advice from someone who may know where I can get one.
Many thanks to you all,
Ron

Hi Ron,

You may have to consider doing the repair the old fashion way by using a new bushing and a new seal on one of your cars. The seal is available from Chevs of the 40's and bushings come up for sale on ebay. I bought a new bushing today for about $14 which included shipping. I may never use it because I replaced my bushing with an Oakie Bushing around 5 years ago, but I could not pass up the price.

After you install your Oakie Bushing send me a PM. I might sell you my new one.

Good luck, Mike

P.S. Make sure you read your manual and do a search of our old posts before you try to tackle replacing your bushing/seal. Also be especially careful to have a jack stand supporting your drive shaft to keep it from falling on you or your floor.

And if your Oakie bushing is made in India measure,measure and measure again. And make sure the oil seal is firmly fixed in the end of it. Read posts by me and StylemasterMEL.

Looking at the current Chevs of the 40's catalog you can see pictures of a 37-39 and 51-54 Oakie Bushings. It would appear that one could easily confuse the sizes and miss label them. This seems to be a common problem with finding replacement parts, especially off of ebay. I never assume I have received the right part until after a very close inspection. I never throwh out an old part until the new one is installed.

I also have problems ordering parts for future use and not closely inspecting them on arrival. It may be a year later that I go to use a part and realize it is a problem. Right now I am dealing with Steele over a poor quality rubber piece that I ordered with other parts a year ago. I assume they will either refund my $107 for a set of molded rubber front fender anti squeak gaskets or send me a better set!!!

Thanks, Mike

Thank you all for your helpful comments.
I have been giving this a bit of thought and note that when you install an Oakie bushing, you leave the rear bushing and seal in place and just remove the front bushing.
As I can only get one bushing, I need to do something to fix the problem with my other car, be it the 47 or 48.
What would happen if I remove the front bushing and clean up inside the tube as explained, install a new seal and seat it against the rear bushing which is still in the tube, and then install a new original style bushing and seat it against the newly installed seal? I seems to me that this would achieve the same result as installing an Oakie style bushing. Am I wrong in this thought, would this work?
Love to hear your thoughts and comments.
Ron

That may work but bear in mind the rear bushing supports the driveshaft and the front bushing supports the universal yoke. It may be that using a worn bushing at the back and a new one at the front results in misalignment between the drive shaft and the universal yoke. Noise? Just a thought. Having seen the old bushing through my own misadventures with it, it would be completely feasible to have an engineering shop make one using the old one as a pattern. The advantage of the Oakie bush is that it operates on a new section of the driveshaft.

Thank you everyone.
I have just removed the universal joint and dropped the tailshaft and you guessed it, the tailshaft is totally different to what the manual says it should be.,
Firstly there is no access slit in the top of the shaft and secondly, both the front and rear bushings are held in by pins where, as I understand it, there should only be one pin on the front bush. In addition, the front bush is level with the front of the shaft just like an Oakie bushing would be.
I doubt that it is an Oakie bush as this car was off the road for over 40 years. But they may have been around way back when.
I am wondering if this tailshaft and diff are off a later model chev. Then I notice that there is absolutely no movement of the tailshaft within the drive shaft so what does that say?
I feel like just giving up on this and just periodicslly running off the excess oil from thr diff.

Hi Ron,

How much leakage are you getting past the drive shaft seal? Please measure it. Normally, I THINK, you only want to replace the bushings in the propeller tube if you are getting vibration in the drive train, and have already determined it is not coming from something else like bad transmission or motor mounts.

Have you done a SEARCH of past posts on this topic? The simplest search is just using the word Oakie in your search.

Yes, it seems logical to, "remove the front bushing and clean up inside the tube and, install a new seal and seat it against the rear bushing which is still in the tube, and then install a new original style bushing and seat it against the newly installed seal?" There is plenty of room for a new seal, about 4 inches.

I will take a look at an extra driveshaft and see if pictures will help. I have a video collection of my work, but it only covered the removal process for the front bushing not installing a new Oakie Bushing.

Good luck, Mike

Hi Ron,

Hopefully, the pictures will help in your decision making process.



The arrows show the locations of the dowels holding the bushings in place. You have around 5 1/2" between the bushings to work with, so you could remove the end bushing and insert a new seal as you mentioned in your above post, and then reinsert the old bushing in its original place.



This is the tool used for pulling the bushing out after drilling out the dowel. As mentioned in previous posts you need to be extra careful to not drill to far into the bushing or you will damage the bushing.



This picture shows the dowel that holds the bushing.



The new dowel has the following measurements - length 1.19", O.D. 1.73", I.D. 1.34"



The last two pictures are self explanatory.



Good luck, Mike

P.S. It is my opinion that you can not beat a good Oakie bushing for an outstanding repair.

How do you tell the difference between one Okie bushing to another?

Number somewhere on it? What are the numbers?

Size? What are the dimensions?

Thanks,
Charlie

BTW: I posed this question before and got no response. Sorry, Mike. I don't do that stinkin search thing. Maybe someone from the 46-48 forum will respond. It will give them something to do. They don't seem to be much activity over there anyway. (See. I'm always thinking positive for the Fleetliners.)

Thank you Mike for the photos. They have certainly clarified the matter for me. I was totally confused because I misread a tech article on the Filling Station website. In that it showed a drive shaft with a slot on the top of the shaft. I mistakenly took this to represent the 48 shaft, whereas it was showing a 30-33 shaft.
The photos you have posted show the shaft that I have on my car.
Having another look at my car, it now seems that the original style bushing is at the front of the shaft with a pin holding it in place.
The only thing I am concerned with now is that on the oakie bushing I received from the filling station, the seal is made of leather which is very hard. I don't believe this would provide a very effective seal. The number on the seal is M-102.
Thanks again Mike for the photos, I feel a lot more confident now that I can fix this problem. The other car still presents a challenge, although I will take your advice and monitor the amount of oil that is seeping into the diff. If it is not too bad, then perhaps I can just keep draining the oil and refilling the
gearbox.
Thanks again for every bodies help, I will let you know how I go.

Ron

Hello again from Australia,
Well things haven't been going all that well with this fix.
Firstly the seal in the end of the Oakie bushing is, as I mentioned earlier, made of leather which is very hard and brittle. I would not dare put it in the shaft. Unfortunately I cannot find a seal that will replace the one in the Oakie. I have found reference to one which has an ID measurement of 1 inch, yet the one in the Oakie has an ID measurement of 15/16 of an inch.
AS I also mentioned previously, I have another '48 with the same problem and in this regard on e-bay at the moment there is a seal for a drive shaft which is stated to have an ID measurement 1.062 of an inch. That is 1 and 1/16 of an inch.
So I was hoping someone could tell me,
1. What is the diameter of a drive shaft?
2. Can anybody tell me where I can purchase a new seal to fit into the rear of the Oakie bushing?
As you all know better than I do, getting seals with the correct measurement is crucial cause once these things are installed, they can't be taken out again without a great deal of work.
I look forward to any help you can offer.
many thanks
Ron