Drive shaft length?

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Derrick Kidwell

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I have a 69 fast back barracuda with 318,904 trans and 8 1/4 rear i never had a drive shaft what length is stock?
 
You can check the parts catalogs for your year car.

There are online calculators.
 
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Your car did not come from the factory with an 8 1/4'' rear end, ---- but it a common swap for a 7 1/4'' rear end. The driveshaft length would be 1.6'' shorter than one for a 7 1/4.
 
Use all the info above to get into the ball park then measure and if the two numbers agree your probably safe.

One thing I would / will do when it comes time to measure for my drive shaft is measure the dimension with the rear end hanging (full droop, limited down travel by the shocks) and put enough weight ( people, gallons of water, etc) in the trunk to go to full bump and measure again, and at normal ride height and measure. the rear will go through some form of an arc as it raises and lowers and while slip yoke CL to pinion yoke CL minus 1 inch (many online drive shaft calculators use that or a similar number) under the extremes of full bump and full droop you could have issues. too long and in full bump you might bottom out the slip yoke, under full droop you might pull the slip yoke out of the splines too much. (and yes I know the springs are relatively flat as leaf springs go so the displacement will be minimal between full bump and full droop but better safe than sorry)

There is also axle twist that will have an effect but not really something you can test for in the garage.

Better to measure twice and cut once!
 
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