Driveshaft upgrade

[alaric]

Hi all.

I eventually managed to remove the driveshaft from the near side hub flange - took about a week of fiddling around when I had time.

I have opened up the holes slightly with an adjustable reamer - fantastic idea. The shafts now pop on with a modest push - I can fit them by hand.

I was expecting to complete the rear end this weekend, and get the engine and gearbox into the chassis so I could run the engine.

So, having done what I would refer to as 'fitting', I assembled the nearside hub and driveshaft, having polished the flanges and brake disc and put copper grease on the studs etc. As soon as I rotated the hub I noticed the run out of the disk. Fitting the caliper confirmed that I'd managed to bend one or more of the wings on the outboard driveshaft - there was no run out before, now it's huge.

I've now removed the hub, shaft and bearings; the bearings are of course new, since that's one of the jobs that was already completed. I have a special tool that fits onto the wheel spinner thread, so removal was easy.

A new shaft is ?150.

So, if you buy some of the CV joint driveshafts, and they don't fit straight on with a modest amount of pushing, then stop, buy an adjustable reamer, and adust until they fit. Trust me, if you have to knock them on with more than the lightest of taps from a hammer, then once they're on, they are very hard to remove!! I was being very carefull not to hammer too hard when I removed mine.

I only had to remove a few thou with the reamer to make the things fit.

Sean.

[jkolb]

If you really want to get elegant with a CV set-up, Taylor Race Engineering, www.taylor-race.com, makes exquisitely machined lightened CV joints that save about 12 oz per CV. They also will custom make axle shafts that are drilled for lightness. The unsprung weight reduction is nice but, as one who appreciates excellence, it is the quality of the machining that really impressed me. It is just too bad that they need to go back under the car (the parts resided on my mantle, where I could admire them for a month). The shaft splines matched the splines in the CV perfectly - no excess tolerence at all. CVs were about $50 each over the price of a standard CV, and the axles were not that expensive.

The need to redo my rear end came when, in dissassembling the car after purchase, I found one of the CVs with only 5 balls. Other parts looked a bit off and, not wanting to end up in a ditch or against a wall, I have replaced the entire drive train. I now have DBE output shafts, the above mentioned shafts and CVs, and TRE hub shafts and hubs. Spendy, but I don't think I will need to spend time worrying about the integrity of the drive assembly.

Jerry

[jkolb]

Correction to my previous post. My hubs and hubshafts are TTR.

Jerry

[lotusanglia1965]

Anyone supply these cv output shafts in the uk? Is it worth having a batch made? shipping will add quite a bit on.
Martin

[alaric]

So if I take the adaptor plate off the end of the driveshafts that I've been trying to fit (the plate provides three studs that go into the standard flange), will I find a spline socket (if that's the right name)? If so, I can't see any reason not to upgrade the set up to use a splined outer shaft. The problem, I guess, will be finding a shaft of the correct length - but then why not just tell TTR what the measurements are; need to identify the spline too.

Sean.

[M100]

Anyone supply these cv output shafts in the uk?

Quaife make them for TTR if I recall correctly