[Fot] u-joint alignment?

[Richard Good]

Scott,

The yokes on each end should be aligned so that if you stuck a shaft through 
each yoke, they would be parallel.   The alignment is critical so the 
velocity oscillations cancel out.  The greater the operating angle, the 
greater the oscillations to be cancelled.  Also, the axis of the driving and 
driven shafts must be parallel for full cancellation.  In the case of our 
axle shafts, this only happens with zero toe and zero camber so most of the 
time we have some nasty efficiency loss from the axles trying to accelerate 
and decelerate the wheel twice each revolution.  Given all that, I am not 
sure you would notice any difference with the half shaft yokes being off 
5-10 degrees but it would certainly be better if they were aligned properly. 
If it was on the driveshaft I would guess you would notice some vibration.

Richard Good
Good Parts
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From: "Scott Janzen" <s.janzen at comcast.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 10:26 PM
To: "'Friends of Triumph' Triumph" <fot at autox.team.net>
Subject: [Fot] u-joint alignment?

> On drive shafts and half shafts, should the axis of the u-joints be
> aligned to the one on the other end, perpendicular, or something in
> between, or does it matter?  On the half-shafts on my GT6, I don't
> think I can get perfect alignment given how the spines are machined -
> looks to be 5-10 degrees off.
> _______________________________________________