MK VIII Yearly "Bleeding" & Driveshaft Vibration Revisited, and other Babbling.

[Ken Nevins]

Hello old friends,
I guess the fact that you haven't heard from me for a while is good news! The 'ole Hot Rod Lincoln has been performing pretty well, except for it's yearly bout of overheating brought on by low coolant (my inattention) and "cured" by a careful bleeding through the top (weird, isn't it?) access port.
New Business: about the driveshaft - about a year ago I picked up a thread referring to driveshaft vibration seemingly built into these beasts by the factory. After checking the "u" joints for wear (my first thought) and finding none, I made a mental note that I needed to "do something" about it when I got a "round tuit" . So I (actually my wife) has been enduring the vibration periods at certain speeds. WELL . . . now it has gotten considerably worse, and she was stated "I'm not driving that 'thing' any more until you DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! OK, OK, I'll check it again - geese! So I jacks her up (car, not wife, smarty!) and lo and behold, the front "u" joint is very bad now! Well it was o.k. last year, but it sure is bad now. My Lord, it's so hard to get out mostly because of the gas tank and a dozen other things that have to come out to get to it - crap! And since it's an aluminum shaft, my local garage wants to send it out to the only place in the area (Toledo) that works on special driveshafts such as we have here. OK, $150 to r & r the shaft and around $200 for the rebuild, which inludes new joints, blueprinted, balanced, and guaranteed. If I remember correctly, a new special shaft is around $500. I don't think we need a "special" shaft, since my wife doesn't race this thing (that I know of!?) Other than ME taking it out to "blow the carbon out" well I really need to, right? I allow myself an occasional smoky burnout - OH that feels good!! What does everyone think? Huh, huh?

 

[unity]

You may want to just look for a 93 solid one piece shaft. They are out there and go for about $100.00

Then remove the front u-joint while on the vehicle. Then you can unbolt the torque bolts holding the shaft to the rear end. I think there is enough room for you to then slid the entire shaft out and over the tank but the car will need to be up in the air a decent amount. I think there is enough room to do this.

From there you can now bench it and remove the rear u-joint. Then load up the "new" one and pop it in.

Just dont slide the trans yoke out when doing all this!

However, if vibration is that bad this would be a great time to drain the trans and replace the rear seal. Cheap part and with the yoke out its the only time to do it.