I want to say thanks for all the help last time you all gave me first off.

After figuring out what the rear end was I was able to get the right bearings only to find just before putting it back together that one of the spider gears was fubar'd also. They looked fine at first inspection but after looking closer I noticed one was cracked. So my brother in law did not want to pay $300 for new ones so he went and got a whole different 9". I had to leave town for work the day I was supposed to put it in for him so he had to do it...He got it in but now it vibrates the truck terribly once it reaches 35mph. I looked at it and it looks about right but the drive line does not come straight from the transfer case to the rear end, it comes down and is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 degrees off of parallel from the frame rails. Is this normal? I always thought drive lines had to come in a straight line from the transfer case to the rear end??

His dumb@!! also cut the e-brake cables out of his truck rather than taking the whole 2 minutes to hook them up..Drums get hot so I am pretty sure his brakes are dragging but I am not sure that would create the massive vibrations he is getting now, but just another thing I have to replace now.

He had brand new joints in the drive line before he started and some how managed to screw the one that attaches to the rear end up so badly he had to replace it..It looks right but then again so does the rest of it for the most part, except for my drive line angle question. So what do you think? I have to leave at 4am for work tomorrow and will be gone all or most of the week again so I would like to get this done today before he screws it up more than he already has.

A few side notes, this new rear end has had the shock mounts cut off and re-welded back on but they look like they are in about the same place as the old ones when compared to his old rear end. It does look like one side of this new one is a different length than the old one but I have not measured it. Going to once get down there. This one is out of a 79, not sure if there is any difference there. It does have 3:50 gears like the old one.

Any help you can give me is once again greatly appreciated and just might keep him from getting a wrench up side the head. lol.

 

Well I got it fixed. He had the lift blocks (or whatever they are called) on the wrong sides which explained the funky angle of the drive line meeting the rear end and it reduced the angle at which the drive line was at coming from the transfer case. Also had to switch out the yoke as the 79 yoke has wider tabs (the ones that hold in the u joint) than the 78 so the joint was not even sitting in it right. He somehow managed to use part of the old joint with the new one so we had to buy another one. Works like a champ now...or at least until he touches it again.