I had to remove my drive shaft, During reinstallation i had to make a gap of about an inch so I used a longer blot to draw it up tight. By doing this I exposed the splines at the center mount of the three piece drive shaft. Is it bad ? how do I get the mount to go back to cover the splines

 

I'm only really familiar with a '74 240 auto, but did you reinstall it with the flex discs (Should be 2 of them?) It seems odd that dropping a drive line that fit, and trying to reinstall you suddently came up an inch short. As for the now-secondary repair, I don't know.