Help needed again...regarding splined shaft

[floydr]

Thank you
later floyd

 

[atalexander]

Keep us posted. If they're not using good steel it's worthless, right?

 

[stan.distortion]

Maybe look for a brake and clutch specialist in your area, many of the better ones will make up clutch disks to spec and have centers for most common spline patterns to hand. For hub splines, could be worth trying a breakers yard but unless you catch the right person at a quiet time they're probably not going to be all that helpful, most expect a specific make, model and year before they'll even bother looking these days.

 

[atalexander]

Okay. I can confirm that the Subaru shafts that have the same OD and spline count do not fit because the splines are not steep/pointy enough. I think that if I just abrade it down evenly it's going to fit without play at some point, but I'm not sure how much meat I'll have left in the splines at that point or how much I need. Wondering if it would be crazy to try to hand shape them to be more steep to preserve more steel. Will post results.

 

[Chalo]

Wondering if it would be crazy to try to hand shape them to be more steep to preserve more steel.

Yes.

You will lose through imprecision anything you get through increased depth of splines.

 

[atalexander]

Ended up not being that hard to do it reasonably well. I reshaped the splines with a rotating jig for the shaft and a clamped Dremel with a carefully shaped abrasive disc. Seems like it worked pretty well. Main question is quality and temper of the steel of the shaft. I ended up using a shaft off ebay with no identification on it that had a tractor PTO output on one end and the 24 splines I wanted on the other. Hoping that anyone planning to attach PTO stuff to one end must have chosen a real tough steel for the thing. Cannot be filed and is not very brittle. We'll see. Next challenge is to weld or otherwise attach the shaft to the female-splined clutch center ring of the car I'm trying to use. Have some skill at stick welding but have never done anything with these strength requirements, both of the weld and the splines on the piece being welded. Do I have to somehow keep the clutch hub cool while welding to preserve temper? Seems impossible. Maybe the dang thing doesn't have to be as strong as I fear, and cooking it in the welding process will be fine?

I'm definitely capable of doing something like what this guy did with a solid adapter, and I guess it did work for him.

 

[eee291]

The Toyota clutch hub I worked on had soft splines. I could use a file to fit it to a golf cart axle.

 

[atalexander]

The Toyota clutch hub I worked on had soft splines. I could use a file to fit it to a golf cart axle.

Wow! Was the shaft fairly soft too then? Did that ultimately hold up? How much did you drive it? Do you have a link or ID number for the shaft? Did your motor-to-transmission linkage have anything springy or flexible in it, or was it solid?

 

[eee291]

The shaft on the golf cart gearbox is very hard. At first, I used the original hub from the old DC motor, but regen and increased power caused it to fail a year later. It was fairly beat up from years of use.
The Toyota hub is still tight after about a year, I can tell it has no play in it compared to the original one.
It's not in use anymore though, the lithium battery somehow discharged itself to 7v over 6 months of not using it, even though I had an ANT BMS on it


The picture is with the original hub.

 

[GaryDe]

Got a lead from a fiend that the gearbox input shaft (the bit the clutch fixes to) from old datsuns from the 1980s have a 25mm 24 tooth shaft. Havn't been able to locate one yet but thought I'd see if anyone has one lying around and maybe they could check.