Hi Ive got a 1967 Riviera GS and have had it for 6 months. Iwould like to lower the back a bit to level it up with the front. I think by 2.When I looked under the car at the drive shaft which I have just had rebuiltthere seems to be a point where the drive shaft has hit the body. Why? The bumpstops are further away than the body is from the drive shaft. How do they get on when they put thesecars in the weeds with air bags? Do I have something different with my car Illput some pics in for your enjoyment <o></o>
I don't know how the shaft could possibly hit the bottom of the car unless the springs were out of it. and even then I don't think it would. Do you hear it when it hits and if so what are you doing when it happens?
we have a vega we race that had stock rear suspension and we ripped one of the mounting points 3/4 the way out of the body and the rear end moved so much the rear end yoke hit the floorboard over 115 mph... might look at your rear bushings and mounting points.
Has the car ever been in an accident? My first car was a mustang.. a 92 4-banger... red on red... I loved it uzzled: Anyway I bought it from my girlfriends mother who was rear ended in it. Had the ford dealer straighten it out, did the body work and painted it myself. But on big humps in the road, the drive shaft would hit the floor. I went at it with a BFH. Even jacking the car up and letting it fall on some blocks to try to push the floor up. It worked. I would think even at full compression it should not hit the floor.
I'm not real familar with Riviera suspensions, but it looks like it's a 3-link set up. I'd be checking all the bushings and making sure that the upper control arm or mounts aren't bent or broken. That looks like axle rotation under load to me, which would imply severely worn out or broken parts. Again not knowing Riviera's to well, I guess there is a chance it could be as simple as the shocks are complete junk.
Could there be a snubber missing? That would account for the rear axle snout moving upward under load. or.....................A friend of mine had this type of thing happen under his Chevelle. What he found was the axle tube/pumpkin welds broke and the pumpkin was rotating in the axle shafts. He got on it once and it was all over, with the pumpkin ending straight up once everything sheared. Duane
I thought about that, but his brake lines look like they've been there a while and aren't twisted up. Not to say that perhaps the lines were replaced by a prior owner after the pumpkin has twisted, but I didn't think it probable. One more thing to check though for sure.
I have no idea how it is supposed to look and it may just be the lighting but something looks funky about the forward mounting point for the passenger side control arm.
If I took out the springs and jaked the axel up into the body I should see what's going on in slow motion ? what do you think. I haven't been thrashing her just motorway cruising there might be a dip in one road but I haven't heard anything and I would have thought I would have. My mechanic said that it might not be the original axel but Im not so sure . Dose any one have some photos of the under side of a 67 Riviera . I put in the pic of the stamped code on the left hand side of the axel dose anyone now about this tuff ? Cheers Matt
I think you'll like this part - the PY code is a 3.42:1 ratio positraction setup, this was standard for the '67 Riv GS...almost as rare as rocking horse poop! Devon
I can't give a reason why, but to me it looks like the nose of the differential is pointing downwards. Perhaps there is some geometry of that rear suspension that is off.
With the frame supported on jackstands and the suspension hanging, that may be normal; I don't know what the angles are supposed to look like during jounce and rebound, but at rest the pinion and rear portion of the driveline should pretty much share a centerline. According to the '67 Buick Chassis Service Manual on page 40 dash 49: Here's a link to the PDF of that section: http://www.teambuick.com/reference/library/67_chassis/files/40-d.pdf Installing a new driveline probably had nothing to do with the symptom here...as has already been mentioned, look at the control arm bushings (also look at body mounts) to see how much things have degraded. I would only consider the vernier adjustment if all of those parts are fine. Devon
Thats not an original 67 driveshaft. Did the shop that rebuilt it change it or did they work on what was there? I know that doesn't explain why the evidience of contact but for that to happen but perhaps it holds a clue. I'd think something was setup differently than it is now for contact in that area. Do you think it hit after you bought the car or before? My guess would be something was setup differently than it is now assuming the lower and upper control arm bushings aren't totally gone.
Whats interesting is that there is a homemade adapter plate in between the driveshaft and the rear axle. Looks like an early shaft (66-68) and a later rear (69-70). Someone fabbed an adapter to join the two
Again I don't know much about Riviera's, but reading that service manual link Devon provided, then the last two posts about the CV joint missing is an interesting point. The CV joint went out in my '72 Centurion shortly after I bought the car (and drove it 2500 miles across the country....) and when it failed I had no idea what the issue was but it acted like bent drive shaft, I couldn't go over 25mph with out jaw rattling vibration. A mechanic put it up on a lift and put it in gear and at idle speed the drive shaft looked like it was flexing like a rubber band :shock: Fortunately he recommend an awesome drive line shop (to get a new drive shaft) and when I got there and yanked the shaft out the guy immediately stated the CV joint was bad, AND he had one on the shelf! :shock: Cut my old one off, welded the new one on while I waited, checked the shaft balanced, and I installed it and it was all good again. So that does beg the question, has it hit since you owned the car?
I may be WAY off base here but my guess is maybe something broke in the past and the shaft came up and hit the body then. Like the others are asking: Does the shaft hit now????
It's a good thought, but the damage to the floor looks very fresh. I'd expect that spot to show rust in New Zealand if the damage was old. Like you said, "what is happening now" is the big question! Devon
Wow thanks guys this is really helpful. So here's an up date . Today I've had the car up of the ground and pulled out the shocks and springs . Then jaked up the back end to see what would hit first drive shaft or bump stops . Well the bump stops did hit and with about 10mm clearance on the drive shaft .So I'm guessing it must have hit in some incident before I got it? The drive shaft has had bigger CV joints installed so that is why the spacer is there so the nut on the diff wont hit the CV joint . The back of the car has been jacked up like some 80's drag car which was the fashion in the day so it's geometry is probably way out .Any clues there to setting that up would be cool .I would have thought that if it was old damage that it would have some rust on the mark but I think that the grease flicked up by the CV joints have preserved it ? I did give it a good going over with a rag first. I'll put in some pic's of it jaked up to show you all . Thanks again for a newbie into fixing up cars it a great help. OK so I cant show you the pic's because some one took the memory card out of the camera. POOP! Thanks all Matt ---------- Post added at 06:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:06 PM ---------- Also just measured the ride height and compered it to what is written in the 1967 Buick Chassis Service Manual that I have and this is what I found .Front should be 201mm it is 210mm not to bad. Back should be 193mm it is 270mm that's almost 80mm higher 3.1496" that's heap's isn't it ? So if I put a 3" drop springs that I see advertised that would be a 6" drop right?
