1958 was the first year for one piece driveshafts in Stude passenger cars.
They purposely made all driveshafts 15 degrees out-of-plane to minimize
propeller shaft 'disturbances'.
From the 1959 model year on, they reduced this offset to 12 degrees, and
used it only on cars with model 44 rear ends. The smaller rear ends (models
23 and 27) used driveshafts with the yokes on th
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In Service Bulletin #262, April 1952, a fix for driveline vibration on
'51-'52 Commanders with automatic trans. was to raise the center support
mounting 1/2 inch, and reassemble the two piece driveshaft 90 degrees out of
phase. That became a running change in production, and as far as I can tell,
all passenger cars, both standard and automatic, were assembled that way
until the one piece driveshaft was introduced in 1958.
Dwain G.