Ball and Trunion (B&T) conversion

[jrcote56@xxxx]

Many thanks to John Hertog for posting Sean's pics. As they say, a picture's 
worth a thousand words.
My only question and comments are why did they have to use what appears to 
be such a long male end to the driveshaft to fit into the long female portion 
of the universal joint yoke end. 
How long is the splinned portion of the shaft? Is there a certain lenght of 
spline that's needed to handle torque? If it is not almost the entire length 
of shaft, why don't they make the female yoke shorter?? (Hard to see where 
the splines end on the pics). The inside of the old trunion has only about an 
inch and a half of travel fore and aft.
I only ask this because instead of having the weight of the shaft supported 
about 2 inches away from the tranny hook up, we now have what looks to be 
about 6 to 8 inches (or more) distance from the tranny rear as the major 
support area. 
Could this be a source of a wear or failure problem with the long (and 
heavy) shafts that are used on our full sized cars? (Many Imperials had two 
shafts with center support.)

I'm interested in this as I had considered changing to this set-up also 
before someone I spoke with brought up the concerns of support of the long 
shaft extending further away from the tranny and if there is a balance 
problem, this may enhance imbalance.
Are we still learning with this set-up?
Anyone have any long term experience with this set-up in both vibration and 
wear & tear? 
John Cote (too many B's & T's)

P.S. What do you say we get Don Cole and his "K" try it out at the 
dragstrip (ala Spring Meet 2000 !!)