Long-slip double-cardan front driveshaft

SupraLux · Post by **SupraLux** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:06 pm

And so it begins... the mods to make it work like it should being forced upon me by the cruel hand of fate (with a little nudging from "go on, just go that way, it'll all be good" Rik...)

Nipping up to Riks place the other afternoon, and by a good stroke of luck, his new house is fully offroad compliant, ie I can get there from my place without touching tar seal despite it being a good few km's away. Just a nip up the beach (which I wasn't going to do until Rik said, "Go on, take it up the beach") and either turn in at the Kowhai River and onto the back roads... or when you turn up the Kowhai and Rik once again says, "go on, just go up there"... I have figured it out... where potential fun exists, I am just plain old fasioned easily lead.

Hey, the beach is nice and flat... we can do this at a fair old clip, no worries... its all good... oh, wait... whats that... oh... its a ridge of gravel and sand... woohoo! airborne... wooho...oo...oooooh... crap... that doesn't sound good... whats all that very metallic mashing and crunching under the truck?...

Houston... we have a problem. Miles from nowhere, no front drive. Get out and have a look to see this:

Well, its happened before... we'll just get the only tool in the truck, the highlift, and jack the front up, then align the splines and lower it again... so we do... then I climb under to do the biz and see this:

I guess all that thrashing about just wasn't good for it... the round bit is kinda not round any more... Oh well, lucky we've got good traction... so a quick u-turn on the sand and back to the nearest departure point up the Kowhai and no rescue required... whew!

Funny, the last time Rik said, "Ah go on just go that way it'll all be good" was 15 seconds before I got pulled over by mr plod... *sigh*... will I never learn...

Never mind, I've now got an excuse to buy some PTO tractor spline and make a new long slip one... photos to follow... no box-section shaft here

Steve

hiriklux · Post by **hiriklux** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:22 pm

I have figured it out... where potential fun exists, I am just plain old fasioned easily lead.

he he fun fun fun

a deer comodity

tristanp · Post by **tristanp** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:26 pm

ive seen the tri-lobal agricultural pto shaft. keep us posted on how well it works.
bonus is its so cheap
im also eyeing up tractor toplinks for a 4 link setup on a strictly offroad truck

SupraLux · Post by **SupraLux** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:42 pm

The stuff I was looking at was 6- or 8-lobed... about $45/m or something rediculously cheap like that...

Might make a quick call to circle track engineering first to make sure that they don't have something else I can use proper-like... although last time I rang them they obviously wanted to balance my driveshaft in their gold-plated balancing machine based on the price they game me...

Certifier just wants balance reports, not fully balanced shafts - so since the rear was made in a lathe and trued to within 1/2 a thou when welded I would imagine the only thing stuffing it up will be irregularities in the welds themselves... should be all good. The front will be manufactured the same way. As long as they are within cooee its all go. Apparently a report costs about $40 per shaft

Steve

tristanp · Post by **tristanp** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:02 am

the tri-lobal stuff i saw was 15-20$ a meter and supposed to be good for 150hp.
ring someone like dan cosgrove tractors in washdyke, or that agricultural supplies place between temuka and ash-vegas

De-Ranged · Post by **De-Ranged** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:36 am

made in a lathe and trued to within 1/2 a thou when welded

Did you weld it in the lathe? I'm curious as I'm gona have to do this soon, I was going to do the front myself, weld an insert onto the joint and spin it off so its a snug fit and use that to locate and limit weld warpage...

if theres an easier way...

As for the back its going to go through a gold plated machine.... I can easily rack up 5000k's in a month with my trucks so I want it spot on

Oh and beasty truck.... looks good!!
Oh and you still keen for a set of arms ??

Cheers Reece

JJ · Post by JJ » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:49 pm

Don't do it. They're only really designed to do 750 - 1000rpm max.

SupraLux · Post by **SupraLux** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:45 pm

My engineer does them for me, so they end up a little nicer than if I did... he has a HUUUGE lathe that the driveshaft fits nicely inside the bore of... Pretty sure he tacks them in the lathe then welds them on the bench. I would imagine he pulls the plug on the lathe and just ratates it by hand while doing that but I will ask him if you want to know...

As for the RPM... whats a PTO spline going to do at 3500rpm? Its solid and waaay chunky... as long as the fit is good they can't go anywhere... and being on the front it generally only travels slowly anyway... I'm not in the position to pay $1000 to have something custom made for an application where it can just as easily be mangled first time out so I'm gonna do it... I'll let you know if anything bad happens...

Steve

SupraLux · Post by **SupraLux** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:49 pm

De-Ranged wrote:As for the back its going to go through a gold plated machine.... I can easily rack up 5000k's in a month with my trucks so I want it spot on

Oh and beasty truck.... looks good!!
Oh and you still keen for a set of arms ??

Cheers Reece

Oh, and mine can do the same... I do 100km's per day round trip just getting from home to work and back... not to mention any running around I might do before/during/after... If the balance report shows any probs then I'll get it balanced, but it feels smooth as a babies bottom right now

And yes, I could be keen to sample a set of arms... will be interesting to see if they fit in the old girl... theres a bit of a squeeze between the spring and the chassis...

Steve

De-Ranged · Post by **De-Ranged** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:58 pm

Bugga that HUUGE lathe thing could be a problem for me :lol:

would be nice to have....
Might have to stick to what I was gona do .... don't need a huge bore for that

as for the speed limit on ag slider shafts alot of that is due to the budget engineering (seen more-n a few that are mounted off center :shock:

spin em at speed when they are straight and watch em bounce!)
The other reason is they just use UJ's and the eliptical movement as you increase the angle .... Steve unless I miss my guess your gona run a double cardinal joint on the box end yes?? if thats the case it'll smooth this out
:wink:

been doing ALOT of reading since my post about running double cardinal joints

PM'd ya about the arms :wink:

Cheers Reece

SupraLux · Post by **SupraLux** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:07 pm

Just spoke to circle track eng about the driveshaft and they reckon the ag-splines are too sloppy to balance. not close enough tolerance between the male and female parts.

Looks like plan B. 80-series slip joint, which is about the same amount longer that mine falls out by for $250ish, then $130ish to fit and balance it to my d-cardan... *sigh* Its all getting expensive again...

Plan C is new automotive slipjoint with new yoke and sleeve - done and balanced on my d-cardan around $600!

Plan B looks the least painful, although I'm gonna gry if I have to fit a limiting strap... I need a sugar mommy... oh wait, got one... married her... but she won't spring for this one I think

Steve