Topic: RUF Flatbelly Driveshafts

[RynothealbinO]

Hi, I was wondering what you guys recommend for a driveshaft for an '84 4Runner with a flatbelly and RUF's?  Right now I have done the flatbelly, with just the rear raised, and the truck has no lift on it.  As it is the stock front driveshaft is barely holding onto life, and the rear is not a whole lot better.  I am planning on doing RUF's and Chevy's to the truck, so after that it will need new driveshafts.  With a single transfer case can I simply build a square front drive shaft or am I going to have a problem with joint angles?  The truck is going to be an offroad beater, so am not worried about vibrations too much, but I do not want to be breaking stuff of wearing out joints constantly.  For the rear what do you recommend doing?  Can I use the CV joint from a front shaft joined with the back half of a stock rear shaft and rotate the pinion up?  I don't even know if the front CV will mount on the rear flange, but if it did it would be a pretty good way to build a cheap shaft if it would.  Ok, so that's all I've got...as you can see I need some help here.  Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[WHITE_TRASH]

swap flanges front to back.  Make the old rear shaft into the front square shaft and have the current front built for the rear.  I did that several years ago.  Still works great.

[joeshmo]

if you have a cv style dshaft in the front you could just clearance it, http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/cvmod/

[RynothealbinO [OP]]

So the front and rear flanges are the same then?  I know I had read that article on clearancing yesterday but I already have an '84 front shaft, so that should be good for 35 degrees in stock form, right?  Or can I clearance that one to get even more travel out of it?  So if I am understanding all of this correctly I should be able to pull the front driveshaft off of my 1990 parts truck and join the CV section with the back half of the '84 rear shaft.  Are the tubes the same size where I can just cut them to length and rig up a jig to weld the tubes together?  Also do you think I should rotate the front pinion up by the use of axle shims, or should the U-joint be fine?  I really appreciate the help so far, so keep it up!

[joeshmo]

as far as i know, if your going to rotate the front axle you will have to rotate the knuckeballs as well, or your leafs will interfear with your steering. i might be wrong

[joeshmo]

just get dual cases and you wont have the problem

[WHITE_TRASH]

The flanges have a different bolt pattern for cv or non cv. The spline count and dust shields are the same so they are interchangeable.

[RynothealbinO [OP]]

So is there a way to redrill the flanges to make the CV work on the rear?  As far as running dual cases there is really no reason for me to do it because this is a mud / trails truck from Minnesota, so I really do not need the extra gearing.  Also keep in mind that I am going to keep the lift pretty minimal (under 3") on this, so that should help some with this.  I have also thought about pushing the front spring mounts an inch forward or so because it would help me with a few other problems at the same time, so that further halps the driveline situation.  So...square shaft up front built out of the stock front and rear built using a front CV with a redrilled flange then?

[RynothealbinO [OP]]

Are front and rear t-case flanges both interchangable?  How about from a gear to a chain drive transfer case?  Because if they are then I can just put the CV style flange from the front of my 1990 on the rear of my 1984 case, if that makes sense.  Will it work?

[WHITE_TRASH]

Yes they are all interchangeable.  The only difference is the dust shield between differential and t-case flanges but the splines are all the same.