I have the drive shaft and rear axle off at the moment and read in my shop manual that the drive shaft is balanced so that it should be attached a certain way to the rear axle. In other words you can hook it up 180 degrees off and it will cause the driveshaft to vibrate excessively. I have already removed them both and did not mark which side of the U joint on the driveshaft met up with which side on the rear axle hookup. Is there any way to know how it is supposed to go now that they are separated? My guess is that trial and error will tell me the proper alignment by the amount of vibration. Will it hurt anything if it is put on 180 deg. off to test? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Eric
65 Coupe, 289, work in process

 

Nope. They're talking about the phase of the u-joints, and you're not going to mess that up very easily.