Correct Driveshaft Spline "Alignment"

[EatsHondas]

I bought my e30 along with a few manual swap parts from the same guy. The driveshaft he gave me is in two pieces and the splines to join the two are not marked for proper orientation when putting them back together. I'm assuming this is a big deal because there are rectangular bits of metal that have been welded to the outside of the shaft (balancing purposes?) from the factory.

I do not want to play guess and check with this. Will I be able to let the car idle along in first gear while on jack stands so I can inspect for vibration without driving it? I know that's bad for the axles/CV's, but can I support that whole assembly from underneath to get the weight off?

[jlevie]

The drive shaft goes together with the u-joint yokes in the same orientation, but that leaves four possible configurations. Put the shaft together, install it on the car, and spin up to about 100mph in fifth gear. Remove the drive shaft and try each of the other combinations, using the one with the least vibration. It would probably be a good idea to have one person work the throttle while another watches the drive shaft for vibrations.

It would be good to add a second pair of jack shafts to lift the trailing arms, or (better yet) disconnect the half shafts from the differential.

[EatsHondas]

Thanks for the reply man. After more lurking and googling, I found that there should be two white dots of paint on both halves (factory) of the driveshaft. Sure enough, they're on mine too.

Also, I tore the rubber in the CSB. I was pissed at first, but now I'm thinking if a few tugs ripped it, it definitely would've failed soon after install on the car. Found another on RockAuto for less than $23 shipped.

[Supershafts]

All bmw's and benz factory stuff will use white or light blue dots to line the shaft up how it was balanced