RE: prop/drive shaft

[<ralemen@cableone.net>]

 Here's my thoughts:

Original or rebalanced shafts are balanced off the car.
Flanges are symmetrical.
If the shaft is balanced it should not matter on which bolt holes align given 
the two previous statements. I have never heard of any special procedure to 
align in the original manufacture on the car.
Equally if a shaft is out of balance it also should not matter as the results 
would be the same. 
Not sure how a shft can go out of balance unless it gets distorted ( bent) as 
it gets no wear apart from at the joints.
There is some amount of play in aligning the bolt holes on the flanges. I 
always try to make sure that each flange is centralised on the other.
If the flanges are off centre then the shaft is off centre thus will appear out 
of blance. The U joint naturally takes care of the positional shift but not the 
balance.
I have always made sure my flanges or any other rotating mating parts are 
centralised on each other. I admit I never marked one end of my driveshaft. But 
I made sure it was centralised before tightening the bolts. I never had any 
problem like Mike.
So marking the flanges althought the quoted way of doing it may not actually do 
any more than give you piece of mind.

Now if someone has some some concrete information ( and I mean the physics) 
then I would love to hear it.


Alan