Team Unsafe gets the (drive) shaft

Having restored compression to the engine, we decided to take a look into the source of the camber problem with the rear end of the Corvair. The cut springs that came with the car gave all of the wheels a bit of negative camber, except for the left rear wheel, which had an impressive ~10 degrees of negative camber. It's a shame we are not racing at an oval track. So, once again, the car goes up on jacks.



Hmmm, that looks interesting. Setting aside, for the moment, the fact that our throttle linkage appears to be held together with a Wonder Bread twist-tie, there was excessive play in the drive shaft.



Oh, hey, look! Half a bearing!!!



Well, maybe the problem will just be with the bearing, or the universal joint. The shaft itself could be fine, right?



Nope. The disintegrating bearings took out the u-joint, the drive shaft, and did some machining work on the yoke.



Hmmm. You can't tell by looking at the picture, but the nub in the center of the yoke is, or rather used to be, the bolt that keeps the yoke attached to the differential. Jake was able to pull the yoke out with two fingers. Keep in mind that we drove the Corvair home, more than 20 miles, with half of the final drive held together by essentially nothing.

The only bits of good news from the day was: (1) A replacement drive shaft was available for ~$50 and (2) all of the shocks had been replaced in the relative recent past. We ordered a used, and hopefully less mangled, drive shaft from the good people at Clark's Corvair Parts and put the car to bed.