VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Mechanical - Engine, Trans, etc Torque tube to transmission misalignment issue

I appear to have some sort of alignment issue with the torque tube in my '52 Fleetline. I recently went to replace the rear springs with a set of stock height Posie's Super Slide springs. As it turned out, Posie's screwed up when they located the locating pins/leaf bolts. (Taking measurements against Eaton Spring's diagram shows that Posie's transposed the front and rear spring eye-to-pin dimensions!) As a result, I had to reinstall the springs I installed at the time I restored this car, nearly 30 years ago .

After seating the left perch and loosely fastening the U-bolts on that side, I went to repeat this operation on the right side, but the rear axle housing would budge, leaving the hole in the perch about 3/4" ahead of the pin. I was able to pull the right side of the housing and perch back with a ratchet strap, just far enough to get the perch seated on the pin. I don't believe the problem lays with the springs, as measurements and simply laying one on top of the other showed them to be identical, and well as the measurements being within tolerance per Eaton's diagrams. (NOTE: the car is on jack stands placed beneath the frame on all four corners -- no weight is on the rear end or the rear springs.)

When puzzling over this problem, I remembered that when I installed the assembled engine and transmission, I fully had first assembled the U-joint so that I could lay beneath the car and just slip the U-joint onto the splines of the already-installed torque tube and rear axle, while my buddy lowered and pushed back on the engine. That part smoothly enough, but when I went to align and seat the rear of the transmission on the mounting, I had to tug the rear of the transmission over to the left a bit to get the tapped holes the align with the mounting bolts -- in other words, the end of the torque tube seemed be pulling to the right. Since I was able to move the rear of the transmission by simply pulling on it, this didn't make much of an impression on me at that time.

My question is -- 1. When stalling the rear axle assembly, is normal to have to pull the tube in either direction, or should the the driveshaft and transmission align without requiring any serious effort? and -- 2. Is it possible for the torque tube to be bent to one side without the car having ever been in an accident of any sort?

Thank you,

Scott Andrews

My experience is that it should all line up without any force. It is not uncommon for spring centre bolts to be not in the centre length wise despite their name but both sides should be square to the frame. Not very likely that the torque tube would be bent to the side.
Tony

tonyw,

Thanks for your reply. Based upon what you noted, I measured the position of each front eye relative to the transmission cross member -- both are equal. I measured the distance between front and rear eyes on both sides -- again, equal. The springs both springs appear to be parallel to the frame rails, and the perches measure equally, front and rear, to one another. So, this still remains a mystery to me.

I haven't pulled the torque tube ball back to inspected the u-joint and torque tube bushings for unusual wear, which should indicate whether this off-center condition is causing a problem, but this will happen soon enough, as I need to replace the clutch, which has developed a nasty chatter. With just 10k miles since the car was put back on the road, I suspect oil-fouling of the clutch disc is the culprit here.

Thanks,

Scott I had a similar issue with my 1936 Standard Coach. I had removed the rear axle to make some repairs to the torque tube . The rear of the car was sitting on jack stands and of course the tires were removed .Once the torque tube was reassembled and put back into the universal joint and transmission I had no problem aligning one side of the leaf springs pin into the perch. The opposite side was an absolute pain. Took a long while trying to get the pin and perch to align. The way I finally got them to align was jacking up that side of the car from under the frame high enough for me to jack up the rear end near the leaf springs. This moved the pin close enough to the perch that the pin slid into the hole.

oldchey36,

Thanks for your reply and advice.