C2/C3 Half Shaft Orientation

[William G.]

Recently there have been two (at least) posts on C2/C3 half shaft concerns and installation. One started by Russ Steinhaus and the other by Tom Dingman.

When first I noticed the second of these postings I assumed by the title that I would gain some knowledge or at least rebuke a reaction of mine to a seemingly humorous (to me at least) statement made in the Corvette Shop Manual. Since Tom's question did not relate to the Shop Manual's statement as I had hoped I will take this as a prompt to put the following on the table for comment.

On the subject of half shaft installation the Shop Manual states "Place driveshaft inboard trunnion into side gear yokes and assemble "U" bolts. Rotate yokes so that trunnion seats are phased 90 degrees apart." With differential action when the vehicle is placed into service what possible advantage is there to a concern about relationship of each inboard U-joint to its opposing neighbor upon assembly? Was the engineer who wrote that imbibing something he shouldn't have been that day--or am I remiss for questioning the statement and is there a valid reason (??!!) for this step?

WAG
1966 Bowtie coupe

[Larry M.]

Re: C2/C3 Half Shaft Orientation

Junior engineers, or engineers without a lot of field/practical experience, were frequently used to write manuals and some basic procedures. He/she probably thought it was a good idea from something they learned in school.

In the real world, it has little relevance.

Larry

[Michael W.]

Re: C2/C3 Half Shaft Orientation

William,

This question has been thrashed many times. It is believed that yoke orientation step was of time saving benefit to the original assembly line process in St. Louis, and simply got cut/pasted as-is into the field service manuals.

The yoke is on them.