drive shaft issues

[Kalis-Ls_Gbody]

whats up fellow gear heads, I have an 86 el camino/caballero, last year i did an ls swap with a 4l60E I used the stock placement for the transmission cross member with the stock driveshaft and all was fine, I just recently upgraded to 373 gears and upgraded the u-joints when putting the drive line back in, last weekend while releasing some stress/testing out the new gears on the frwy, my drive line decided to eject itself from car, the weird part is, i didnt get any warnings before, no wobble noise or rough riding, it just shot out like a rocket. that being said does anyone know what could have gone wrong and does anyone know if can pull one out of a newer model car or do i need a custom made driveshaft seeing how these are discontinued anything helps!
P.S. the bad news for you guys is, theres no damaged pictures for you to see! the good news is, theres no damaged pictures for you too see 😂

 

[fleming442]

Obviously, there was an error in procedure... You pose a very vague question with few details and no pics. How does one "upgrade the u-joints" without getting a driveshaft built or building one yourself (we have a crafty member)? You can't see any signs of failure? Strap let go? Missing retainer clips? Yoke not seated in the trans enough?

 

[Kalis-Ls_Gbody]

Obviously, there was an error in procedure... You pose a very vague question with few details and no pics. How does one "upgrade the u-joints" without getting a driveshaft built or building one yourself (we have a crafty member)? You can't see any signs of failure? Strap let go? Missing retainer clips? Yoke not seated in the trans enough?

Obviously, there was an error in procedure... You pose a very vague question with few details and no pics. How does one "upgrade the u-joints" without getting a driveshaft built or building one yourself (we have a crafty member)? You can't see any signs of failure? Strap let go? Missing retainer clips? Yoke not seated in the trans enough?

I didn’t take pictures of the spline where the yoke goes only because theres was no issue there as far as damaged goes, and by upgrading the u-joints, what i meant was i changed out the old ones for new ones

 

[lilbowtie]

Definite signs of the U joint exiting. Was it installed and torqued properly? I don't see the strap, did it break? Did the U joint break? Is the drive shaft in one piece?

 

[fleming442]

There's also a witness mark on the yoke where the clip was digging into it before letting go. Error in procedure......

 

[Injectedcutty]

The one time I lost a driveshaft was from a strap that got installed wrong. A younger kid was helping my buddy and I put a 12 bolt in my car temporarily while my rearend got fixed. He was wanting to learn stuff, so I installed one strap to show him, my dumb azz didn't check his work. A couple days later I dropped the driveshaft at about 30mph. Scared the crap outta me!

 

[pontiacgp]

I had these straps on my 67 A body rear end, dropped the driveshaft once but never admitted to my screw up to you guys,,,,

put these on after that and no issues

 

[Hoopty_Mike]

You got the stock driveshaft to fit with an ls/4l60e? What did you have in it before? What mounts did you use? The reason I ask is, the 4l60e is 3" longer than anything that came in these cars.

 

[64nailhead]

Strap failed. The one still installed looks 'not new'. Those strap kits are darn cheap, buy new. The ones that pontiacgp posted a pic of are really nice, but you truly don't need them. ou have to work to get the UJ centered in that yoke, but it can be done. I use the ones in the 1st pic that pgp posted and we put the wood to it - they work.

Regarding your shaft, you mot likely need a new one. The chances of that shaft being salvageable are slim to none. Find a local truck shop that builds shafts -is there a FleetPride in your area? They are economical. The front two yokes on yours should be good, then you'll need tube and rear yoke. The yoke on the rear end should be fine from the looks of it. Make sure the UJ fits in it properly and it should be good to go.

p.s. - you're livin' life on the edge with a 4L60 if your LS is much beyond stock.

 

[pontiacgp]

Strap failed. The one still installed looks 'not new'. Those strap kits are darn cheap, buy new. The ones that pontiacgp posted a pic of are really nice, but you truly don't need them. ou have to work to get the UJ centered in that yoke, but it can be done. I use the ones in the 1st pic that pgp posted and we put the wood to it - they work.

Regarding your shaft, you mot likely need a new one. The chances of that shaft being salvageable are slim to none. Find a local truck shop that builds shafts -is there a FleetPride in your area? They are economical. The front two yokes on yours should be good, then you'll need tube and rear yoke. The yoke on the rear end should be fine from the looks of it. Make sure the UJ fits in it properly and it should be good to go.

p.s. - you're livin' life on the edge with a 4L60 if your LS is much beyond stock.

the reason I got the girdle straps is there isn't a c clip to hold the cup in place, there is just a tab and it is worn down a bit after 40 years...it could have been that I stripped the threads a bit allowing the u bolts to back off but I will never admit to that