Posted by Clint Dixon on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 3:41PM :
In Reply to: Ends don't have to be parallel, can be complementary posted by chris case on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 3:14PM :
That is a good point. An opposite condition would be the axis perpandicular to one another. In this condition the the ellipses of travel are still shaped the same, or the way you put it, the same angle.
I have checked the angles on my WDX. I believe they were within 2 degrees. Since then I have installed new transfer case mounts, so the angles could be off now. There was actually a service bulletin of about 1958 that instructed dealers to install shims to correct missalignment of the engine axis and transfer case axis.
I had a '61 W100 Town Panel in which someone had installed a 440 big block engine and automatic transmission. The engine was setting too level to the ground and was pointing off to the passenger side of the truck just a little. It took a lot of work, but when I was finished, I had the axis through the engine, the axis through the transfer case, and the axis through the rear pinion all parallel. It reduced the amount of driveline vibrations considerably. I of course used a few shims here and there and tapered wedges between the rear axle and springs.
Clint