I installed the drive shaft. No real difficulty, other than the realization that the supplied bolts are not the right size for the adapter that FFR provides. Thankfully FFR knew that, and provided alternative bolts, marked 12.2. I'm no expert, but that sounds strong enough to me.



The engine, transmission, drive shaft and differential all line up perfectly.





I attached the Metco driveshaft safety hoop. Great piece of equipment. It did require a complete new set of hardware, but that's not really Metco's fault. Remember that 3/4" thick pair of transmission support plates that we have to install below the rear transmission mount? Metco did not account for this modification in their design. The hoop did fit around the drive shaft, and it actually did clear, but it really is pretty close.



I did the same that others have done. I used grade 8 washers to create a stack a little more than 1/4". I had to go buy 16 washers, four 3/8"x1" bolts for the hoop and two 5/16" x 2" bolts for the rear transmission attachment. These bolts were perhaps a 1/4" too long, but there was enough room for them up inside the polyurethane tranny support. I had already bought longer bolts to account for the 3/4" spacers, but now I had to buy two more to accomodate the Metco safety hoop. In this photo you can see the stack of washers. Of course everything was installed with blue loctite, and whenever possible, the bolts were installed facing downward. If the nuts fall off, you still have a bit of a chance the bolts will stay in there long enough to get you to safety. I also used deformed nuts whereever possible. (Ignore the goofy guy lying on the floor!)