driveshaft issues, Mustang rear

You are using a heim joint on the front chassis mount, right? That's going to transmit a lot of vibration and noise, so it wouldn't be very suitable for a street car, especially an enclosed car. Might be enough wind/road/etc. noise on the open roadster that you don't hear anything, just some vibration. A strut rod bushing would be perfect for the front, I think. 

I'm thinking that adapting what you have to a Classic would be supper easy. Weld a bracket under the existing trans crossmember and keep the heim. Maybe weld the bracket to the rear edge of the crossmember so it's further up and back closer to the u-joint pivot. The rubber mounted crossmember would keep vibration and noise to a minimum.  A bracket could be made to use a strut rod end though. At worst it would have to use a half-n-half (poly/rubber) strut bushing if there is doubt about the rubber holding up pushing the car. I don't think that's an issue at all -- the force of hitting a pothole is more than most cars would put on the rear axle.


Edited by farna - May/28/2016 at 9:36am

farna wrote: You are using a heim joint on the front chassis mount, right? That's going to transmit a lot of vibration and noise

Not only does the wishbone follow the driveshaft, but the oil pan is much lower than a joint below the driveshaft. Heims on the axle connections does make things easier, but wouldn't be hard to design around that. I'm liking the strut rod bushing idea even more, now that you agree it would be good! I like simple engineering solutions much better than complicated, and that's about as simple a solution as you can get. With rubber bushings it would have more than enough range, nearly as much as a heim, and no noise. I think I'd just angle the mounts on the axle so you still have some pinion angle adjustment. Could also mount under the axle like truck arms, then use shims to adjust angle. That would be the simplest method. Good alternative to my torque arms scheme, and would be much easier to install... just have to make a mount for the front.

This should still work well if the wishbone were up to a foot behind the u-joint (toward axle), but the closer to it the better.  What do you think about this? I'm thinking a secondary crossmember that mounts just behind the u-joint might be easier than modifying the trans crossmember.

Since the wishbone is handling fore-aft location and rotation and the panhard just side-to-side location, the wishbone front mount needs to be strong enough to handle full fore-aft loading and the wishbone needs enough section to resist bending moments from axle torque ( engine and braking).

farna wrote: I went back and looked at your website at the first gen setup. Nothing wrong with it at all, and it's more what I'm thinking about a KISS setup. Shims are used to adjust pinion angles for leaf spring cars. The way you mounted the bars the same shims would be used. Cheap -- 2-8 degree available. You can be a degree off and not have an issue. http://www.4wheelparts.com/Suspension/Leaf-Spring-Axle-Shim.aspx?catID=1&subCat=101&ptID=5502&pg=1