I traded one of my 67 Chevy trucks for a 1950 Chevy 3600 (216, 4spd, 5 window) yesterday and I'm excited! It runs, but smokes like a freight train. The previous owner drove it regularly so I decided to drive it home - a 30 mile trip. Here's my first adventure with this truck:
I get about 6 miles from home and I noticed some very bad vibration, my dad following me flashing his lights at me, and fire dropping onto the road behind me! I shut off the engine, pull off the battery cable and pull over immediately. I looked under the truck and the driveshaft and transmission tail was red hot and on fire! I had a bottle of aquafina, and managed to find some more water in a nearby ditch and cooled everything off before any real fire occured. The grease on the tranny is what was burning. Anyway, we called a buddy with a roll-back for the rest of the trip.
I just thought I'd make my first post and introduce myself. In my searches I've not seen any posts about melted driveshafts so I thought I'd share. It was glowing bright red coming out of the tranny housing and about 6 inches further down the tube! I could see inside the tube where it had separated and the inner tube (maybe the tranny shaft?) was glowing too. I've never seen that before...wish I had my camera with me.
I have not tore into it yet to see what the extent of the damage is and what it will take to fix it. I assume there is/was a u-joint or ball-joint that I cannot see without taking the housing off of the end of the tranny? I just hope the tranny shaft isn't twisted or otherwise ruined. Any advice on what to expect here would be appreciated :-)
My plans are to keep it stock and in roadworthy condition for now. After I finish a couple of other projects, and my son gets a little older this will make a nice restoration project.
I'll post pictures and stuff soon.
Greg
