Camaro u joint caps/clips

[Hood]

As Gary said, the snap rings are internal, and all 8 of them are in there. The caps are pressed in as far as they can go...

Ummm...I see a problem. The caps cannot be pressed in so that they bottom out. They need to be backed out against the snap rings or you will have an early failure. To do this, set the yoke on an open vise so that the ears are supported and, using a soft face deadblow hammer strike the opposite flange to seat the bottom cap into the snap ring. Flip it over and repeat. Do the same for the other two caps. The yoke should have absolutely no resistance when moving it back and forth.

[Pranav]

Yeah, if I backed out the two on the transmission yoke, the clips wouldn't go in at all. Something definitely wasn't right, and then with the vibration I threw in the towel.

Houston drive train confirmed it all wasn't right and re-did them with good quality Spicer joints before doing a balance job. Told me to return the Chinese precision/federal crap and get my money back. They also told me to stick with the clips that came with the Spicer joints as the two full circle snap rings I used on the rear were too thin and probably adding to the misalignment...

[marshall_mosty]

Glad you got it resolved. I had a custom driveshaft made a few years back when I did my wheelbase shift and it's been money well spent since they used real nice U-joints going back together.

[Pranav]

Still have an intermittent vibration in 4th gear. In Turn 1 I can feel it as soon as I downshift from 5th to 4th. Heading in to turn 7 it seems fine shifting from 3rd to 4th but as I accelerate up and in to T7 I could feel it.

On the front straight I think it was fine when going from 3rd to 4th as I accelerated towards 5th, which is weird. Drained the trans fluid into a clean pan, no big fragments or anything out of place. There was also a small amount of ATF dripping from the seal, nothing catastrophic, but unusual.


Going to pull the trans, get the tailshaft housing off and check/replace the output shaft bushing and see if that helps for Hallet.

What else could it be? Hoping I didn't bend the output shaft but that wouldn't that become apparent all the time above a certain speed, as not evidenced by it being fine in 3rd/5th at the same speeds?

Recall that at MSR cresson I had the driveshaft seperate from the rear and bang around, which I believe to have caused this...

[BryanL]

Sorry you are still having a vibration. If you don't find anything consider having someone else drive the car to verify. I'm guessing the vibration must be pretty noticeable if it's in Turn 1 on the 5-4 downshift. My whole car feels like it might explode from the end of the straight till the time you get it braked and back on the gas.

[Pranav]

Yeah, mine was doing that in turn 1, but only when I downshift; everything I've got (play in yoke, vibes on decel in specific gear, seal leak) is symptomatic of a worn tailshaft bushing (which likely happened when the old driveshaft got flung around at cresson). $10 part and an afternoon of work, I'll just do it.

[Pranav]

Pulled the trans out of the car and replaced the tailshaft bushing. The yoke had some play with the old bushing, not so sure if it was bad. I did replace the trans mount as it had a ton of flex in it compared to a new one.

I also swapped the pressure plate before putting it back in, clutch is nice and smooth now, I think I tweaked it when pulling the old motor out of the car and not loosening the bolts in sequence.

For future reference, anyone that wants to do a t56 output shaft bushing:

1. Buy TWO timken/national 5200 seal/bushing sets. You will screw the first bushing up

2. Press or carefully hammer the old bushing out and the new bushing in

3. Use a 3-stone brake cylinder honing tool to open the bushing up just enough to push the yoke in

4. When reinstalling the tailshaft housing, you'll need to wiggle reverse fork slightly to get it all to line up

5. I took my tailshaft off with the transmission out of the car and sitting input shaft down on a furniture dolly with blocks of wood. I think this is the safest way although I've heard you can do this in car. I took mine out because I wanted to swap out the pressure plate.