Towing a Bristol -

[Frenchy]

On looking thru the owners manual on a 408 with the 313 and cast iron Torqueflite automatic, which I believe someone called a type A-466, vs the later 727, it says if one has to tow a 408 on its rear wheels, the driveshaft must be disconnected. However, after looking at the driveline ends, all axial available movement for pushing the driveshaft forward to clear the rear axle's Ujoint yoke is in the front two roller Ujoint, and that Ujoint housing looks like it might not have enough fore/aft travel for the rear end of the shaft to clear the differential's yoke when disconnected. Can anyone help me out here re the forward travel? It also doesn't appear that the shaft can be removed completely - if necessary - due to no space at the front to clear the transmission, but possibly at the rear if one has full car weight on the axle, with car on a lift, to slide the shaft out below the differential due to the tall vertical slot in the chassis crossmember. OR - worst case - does the axle have to be dropped??

[californiabristol]

I believe that once the rear yoke is disconnected, the rear end of the shaft
can be tilted away from the differential thereby allowing the shaft to be pulled
rearwards which will extract the forward, splined shaft from the transmission.
When I removed the driveshaft on the 411, I had already removed both the
engine and transmission in separate steps. I believe that there is enough room
in the rear cross member to manipulate the shaft around the differential.
Basically, pull the drive shaft backwards, drop the front end, then pull the
drive forward extracting the rear end from the rear cross member.

[Frenchy]

You may be right, but as I had the car jacked up on the right side with the chassis jack, and the right rear tire off the ground, there was not enough clearance between differential and the chassis "slot" in the crossmember to withdraw the shaft between differential and bottom of the crossmember slot. There may be clearance if the axle was pushed up in normal position relative to the body when the car is on the ground, but then the only access to the shaft is on a two rail car lift, which I don't have. So I'll be hoping there is enough forward travel in the front slip joint to clear the rear shaft yoke from the differential yoke, then clamp the shaft to the crossmember so as not to tear up anything during towing on a dolly. I'll let everyone know how it goes…...