Shorten a Driveshaft in your Home Garage 

I'll probably never shorten a driveshaft but this detailed video of the process was awesome to watch. Good job.

That dude is gangster. He was rollin the whole chassis when checking it

Excellent video and as he said if there is a vibration it can be balanced at a drive line shop

I did one ..no problem...before i cut i took a straight angle iron. And scribed a line total lenght...so 100% lined u joints back

Out the cob-webs: Read arcticle hot rod mag mentioned cutting shaft w/big tube cutter and the square cut would seat yoke perfectly. May have been popular hot rodding. LOL.

Some years ago I broke the front u-joint and bent the driveshaft on my 1974 Chevelle. I took it to local driveshaft shop. I don't remember the numbers, but I think it was about an hour's labor plus the price of two u-joints. That included balancing. Considering I didn't have a garage or a welder at the time, I felt that was reasonable.

U did a marvelous job Old Sport!🇺🇲

Wow Dick, that chassis is looking amazing 🤩 your attention to detail is 1st class and well thought out 👍🏻 What a great series 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

very nice job and filming

Thanks Dick , super interesting . Been a mechanic for 50 years on all kinds of stuff good to see it done right.

I've done it 4 times in my life, and I've been lucky every time. I only took one of them in to have it balanced, the other 3 were shorter than what he's working with.

I remember I had several gto and Pontiac driveshaft’s hanging in my garage, the night the garage burned those driveshaft’s were freakin missiles hahaha some exploded,opening flat with the yokes missing, some were several houses away

Great tips. Cheers.

Thank you I will be waiting when you fire it up and run it can’t wait .

Well done, I'm about to do same on a project I am working on, thanks for sharing.

I always use a pipe cutter and it does a great job of making a square cut and is the shaft flat on my table to clock the yokes and measure center to center on both sides. When everything is square weld it up. I never had one to vibrate or fail with decades of building them for street and drag cars , some with 5:67 rear gears and no vibrations. A pipe cutter that cuts like a tubing cutter makes a perfect cut for driveshafts. A chop saw is not nearly as good for cutting a shaft but I understand you use what you have and if it works great. There’s no big deal to cutting one if you are careful.

I have done this many many times, mainly on older BMW's when fitting later 5 speed gearboxes, the only one I had a vibration issue with was an E32 750i I built up from a damaged 750iL, I balanced the shaft using two hose pipe clips, we call them Jubilee clips, the head of the clip being the balance weight, I did send it for balancing after a year or so of use and it came back worse, refitted the clips by trial and error, mark the shaft and move the clips 1/4" at a time whilst driving the car on a lift,

Great video Nice job done. Let me know when you actually run it. I love your engine and tranny wow. 👍🏼👍🏼

Very cool. Nothing to be afraid of.

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Great tutorial. I read a spec. of .03 runout on a carbon shaft for 9 sec. dragcars. I built shafts in v blocks on the bench and more accurately jigged in the truck while checking runout and welding. Never had a vibration.

thats a good idea, never thought of doing that way, i like the old lufkin indicator

A simple scribe line to line back up with yokes.?

Very Nicely Done Thank You !~!~

You do real nice work, I have had a number of drive shafts shorted and they did not look as professionally done as the one in your garage, the welds on mine look like rope and there are a washer or two welded on the tube and then just painted over rust . But on the positive side they never vibrated?

Nice job

There are ways to balance driveshafts ,with out machines, some books out there

Good JOB. |

I've done a few of them. only had a problem with one of them. I never checked runout with a dial gauge. I will do that next time.

Company I worked for years ago hired a driver who had lost an eye pounding on a U-joint in his dads driveway.

Balanced ?

Nice work thanks from old New Orleans 😇

This is a great example of what NOT to do.

sorry to say once you cut the shaft putting the weights in the same spot is usless it could need more or less and in a diffrent place comen sence really

The dial pointer should be removed from the surface before tapping to avoid damaging the indicator.

Nice work, thank you

No no no . Will be out of balance among out of center

My Dad used to do this. And he never had a problem with vibration or anything.

Y0u must leave at least 1 inch of travel for rear end to travel up in hard acceleration if you dont you will bust the bell housing on the teansmission

Spend the money to have it balanced. Do your driveline a favor.

Get it balanced and have them spin it up to at least 120 mph /rpm. Then do some good burn outs to test welds and prove to yourself it will hold. Then do some more burnouts because it’s fun. Then do some more just because. Life’s short burn rubber while you can.

For those watching this video don't do it. It's probably going to vibrate like crazy. There's no way you're going to match the end to what it was originally. The reason the weights are on it is because they're not cut true to start with.

My Dad shortend many driveshaft at home in his garage by puting a piece of tape on it to keep it all in line & straight so it wouldn't shake ur teeth out !

I’ve done this dozens of times exactly like this with big power as well as lifted trks with big tires never had a problem. My drag trk makes 600 hp with a 200 shot of nx on top of that with my home made drive shaft. My 3200 pound truck and 727 has never had a drive shaft issue. It’ll work be careful and get it straight

The slip yoke should be at least 1 inch pulled out

Good job but no way would you get this right with a lathe.

You went to a lot of trouble to out smart yourself.

That yoke is too far in on the transmission spline shaft.

Setting the transmission output yoke that far in could be a disaster!?.. .

Anyone even thinking about doing this should really think about all the other things you tried to do that looked easy and failed, badly! This is a guaranteed disaster.

when you go over a bump[ you will hate yourslef for puting that joint to far in toe trans

Omg. Do not do this! I built driveline professionally. This will end in disaster.