[OR-Carl]

Hey all, I have a sort of specific question, and thought I would just dive right in and see if anyone could shed a little light, or at least point me in the right direction.

A little background; I am working on an electric conversion of a 1996 s-10. It started as a 2.2l with a blown head gasket, and a 5sp manual transmission. I am not very knowledgeable about cars, so I just pulled all the ICE bits out of the truck, figuring I would not need any of them again. A year later, and I am finally getting to the point where I can start thinking about mounting my electric motor, and it occurs to me that I maybe should have made a note of where the transmission was positioned when it was attached to the gas engine. I have the transmission back in the tunnel sitting on the cross member, but the front face is free to move several inches in each direction. I am going to be ditching the stock engine mounts and building a cradle that holds the electric motor, but I am not sure where the cradle should be holding it.

I read a little on the theory of getting the angles to match on both ends of a driveshaft, but I dont have the tool, or really understand what part I would be measuring.

I suspect there is a certain amount of play that is acceptable, so what I was sort of hoping was that I could just match up the position of the transmission to what it ought to be.

Using the bolts for the lower control arm as a reference line - would anyone out there with this transmission be willing to take a couple measurements of where yours sits? If I matched the height above that line and the distance from one of the bolts to the center seam in the transmission, it seems like it ought to be more or less in the right spot...

Or if this is a bad approach, could anyone offer some guidance on how to go about getting it in the right spot?

Thanks a lot,
(I hope removing the gas engine is not anathema around here - it is still an S-10, right? )

 

[oldeerslayer]

The angle that the transmission is at should match the angle that the rear end is at. At rest with normal load on all four wheels. You can measure these angles with a magnetic gauge on the yoke when is straight vertically. Gonna need better than a $5 HF one, tho. You don't want 0°. 1 to 1.5° is ideal. You can go to 3°, but approach that with care. If they don't agree you'll get vibration. The idea is that as one is going up the other is going down and they cancel each other as the driveshaft rotates.
The tilt of the engine up or down will affect the angle at the transmission. It can be corrected by raising or lowering the trans mount. You can also get rear end angled shims to change it's angle.
When guys lower the rear end of the truck they sometimes need to raise the rear of the trans almost as much to remove vibration. Essentially moving both the rear end and trans up to maintain the angle.
Here's a good gauge for $10

BMR Suspension AF001: Angle Finder 0 To 90 Degree Angles - JEGS High Performance

Buy BMR Suspension AF001 at JEGS: BMR Suspension Angle Finder 0 To 90 Degree Angles. Guaranteed lowest price!

www.jegs.com

You'll notice that the needle actually touches the scale to get an accurate reading. Many do not and are hard to read the difference between a couple of degrees.

 

[OR-Carl]

Hey, thanks for the reply; that helped. I was feeling confused about where I was supposed to take the measurements, but after watching a couple of videos on youtube, it seems pretty clear now. I ordered an angle meter, and will try getting those angles to match.