Torque-Tube Balancing in SoCal?

[Fr. Buick]

I have my '54 Super apart, and for the sake of being thorough would like to balance the drive-shaft. The shops I have asked at say they can't balance it without a modern universal joint. (The factory joint relies on the brass sleeve in the torque-ball to keep things in line.) Does anyone have a trick they can share, or a shop in the area of Southern California who can do this for me? Grateful for any help,

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Douglas, if you are not modifying it, why would it need balanced? When I changed out the gears in my '50 for the '55 3.4:1 , I needed a new shaft built. The shop doing it could not balance it for the same reason.

Ben

[old-tank]

It can be done ( I had one done in Seguin )....it can be done, but probably not necessary unless a new tube was installed. It can be out of balance if there is tranny and/or differential fluid in the driveshaft tube...it gets in there (when the torque tube is full from a leaking front seal) from the splines at the pinion and through imperfect welds at the rear of the tube. If you have the driveshaft removed from the pinion, drain and flush with Varsol or equivalent; if not stand it with the driveshaft up to let it drain, then drill a small hole in the tube and squirt solvent to flush.

Willie

[Pete O]

From a physics standpoint, the relatively narrow diameter solid Buick driveshaft has a smaller polar moment of inertia than the larger diamenter, hollow open driveshaft design. Therefore imbalances in the Buick design are not magnified as much as they don't whip around at the end of a large radius like the open driveshaft. Then mechanically, the Buick shaft is nicely supported at both ends by bushings and bearings, while the open driveshaft has flexible u-joints at each end which further magnify any imbalances. In other words, Buicks are better built!

[60FlatTop]

So when I was a kid and my grandfather cut a drive-shaft in half and slid a smaller tube inside to change the length; when he said blow the bolt holes in with a torch at 90 degree angles to keep the balance, he may have grasped the concept but fell a little short in the details?

Bernie

[Bhigdog]

Cut to size, hammer to fit............Works for me.............Bob