It's been a real long time since I've been under a Ford pick-up and I can't remember if they had a two piece drive shaft or not. I remember the center drive shaft supports would give trouble. Also my T-Bird has a factory installed pinion snubber, I don't know if they were used on pick-ups or not.

On the pickup's, 2 piece vs 1 piece drive shaft had to do with the transmission option and the wheel base.  My truck is equiped with a 1 piece shaft and does not have the T-bird snubber/bump stop either.  The link provided in a previous post for Caltrac requires supplying them with important dimensions before ordering traction bars. At this point, that's what I plan to do. That way the track bars will be custom built for the application.  I believe traction bars will also help improve braking since the axle tends to wrap in the opposite direction when acceleratiog. 

64F100 57FAIRLANE500

For '61 trucks, swb uses a one piece drive shaft and lwb uses 2 piece.  I think that is true through the generation '61-'66.


Lawrenceville, GA

Charlie, is your unibldy a SWB?

64F100 57FAIRLANE500

It is.


Lawrenceville, GA

Was just curious if your truck had a 1 piece or 2 piece driveshart.  My '64 F100 has the 8' box (128" lwb) but with a 1 piece driveshaft about 80" long. I'm still not sure if it came from the factory with a 1 piece shaft of not. It was originally equiped with a T86 OD.          After looking at the Caltrac site, it looks like the trac bars for our trucks supplies an aluminum bushing for the front eye of the rear spring?  If that's true, was there any additional noise or harshness as a result of a solid bushing? Thanks.................

64F100 57FAIRLANE500

Mine has a one piece shaft.  80" length might be ok for a truck but the maximum rpm for a shaft that long will be quite low.  The shaft when I had the 3 speed was shorter although I don't know the length at this point and the max rpm for that was something like 4500.  Since I now have a T5, which needs a shorter shaft, that max rpm is over 6000.

It does use an aluminum bushing in the front spring eye.  You can see the bushing in one of my pictures.  I noticed absolutely no difference in the ride or sound qualities of the suspension.  Full disclosure, my truck is not the truck for evaluating sound.  It's unrestored, has rust in all the places that you don't want it on one of these and makes all kinds of noises as a result.





Lawrenceville, GA

I must really be showing my age when I stated 80" for the driveshaft.  It's aprox. 67" X 4".  When I did all the math, the critial rpm worked out to somewhere in the 80's mph range in my case.  I can live with that. I believe a '64 lwb was built with a 1 piece shaft,  only IF optioned with the T86 OD trans. The T5 in the truck now is about 3 - 4" shorter.  I thought if you have a lwb and 2 shaft's, I would have asked for a pic  -  no big deal though.       I now noticed the aluminum bushing in one of your pics.  Since you can't report any additional harshness, then I'm even more sold on these traction bars.  Do the side plated pivot on thet aluminum bushing?  Or do they pivot on the through bolt?  It looks like the plates have a hole large enough for the diameter of the bushing.  Thanks for the iinformation......................

64F100 57FAIRLANE500

Actually, I think it is a 2 piece bushing, steel inner and aluminum outer, if I remember right.  I didn't take a picture of it separately.  The aluminum is pressed into the spring, replacing the rubber bushing.  So the bracket and spring (with aluminum bushing pressed in) pivot on the steel bushing.


Lawrenceville, GA

Thanks everyone for the useful information. 

64F100 57FAIRLANE500