There have been a number of questions regarding how to align the drive shaft for 700 series cars at the sliding spline. Each piece of the drive shaft has arrows which are supposed to point at each other when the drive shaft halves are coupled at the spline. You can see the arrows by the splotches of yellow paint. Often times the arrows and yellow paint are not visible until you do some thorough cleaning of undercoating and road grime.

Great tip. The problem I once had (because of carelessness) is that I removed the center universal joint, and managed to re-install it 180 degrees out of phase. This meant that even if I lined up the splines correctly the 2 halves of the driveshaft were no longer balanced. Of course I will never do THAT again! Always mark the driveshaft before removing universal joints so that you get them back in the same way.

--
Matt L. -- Cary, NC -- '91 740 wagon

Great photo. The shaft we received had on spline blinded so it could only be inserted one way. Must be some are fabricated differently.

Looking at your posts it appears the transmission transformation is complete.

dick

I have seen the drive shafts both ways. Maybe it is just the M46 drive shafts which are not indexed.

Thanks for that wonderfull tip there John, id of never guess that and i have taken my shaft out about 10 times now though i did never look at it, guess id better pull it soon to make sure i got it lines up right, but i seem to remember on mine i had a notch cut into it if i remember correctly so it only did fit back together one way.

FWIW, my 87 {build date is Sept. 86) 745T w/AW-71 has a keyed spline also.