Nick Thanks for the thoughtful input,
So Friend, now we have Ken Gillanders who advocates the reduced diameter
approach. Bill Thumel and Chuck Botwright who claim it has worked for them
and now Nicks testimony.
Should we reduce the shaft size?
Chip
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From: Malaboge@aol.com[SMTP:Malaboge@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 1997 7:19 PM
To: spirals@ESINET.NET; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Triumph axles
In a message dated 97-06-06 07:22:14 EDT, you write:
>
>Please provide Jack and myself with any input you would like to make to
>this project at this point. If you perhaps know of a retired TR service
>manager, if you could call him and try to get a feel for axle failure and
>if there is a correlation with shaft type, that would be a help.
>
Chip-
Opinions, I mean, correlations-R-us....
Back in the olden days, when racers had treads on their tires, and green
dots
ruled, I used to always carry a spare axle to the races. In those days,
most
people towed with their regular car, or if they were lucky, the wife's
station wagon. As a result, space was at something of a premium and you
never
carried stuff you didn't need. I got a lot of kidding about carrying an
axle,
but I used to twist them occasionally. The locals had a theory that because
I
did not run oil in my carb dampers, that I was "shocking" the driveline
enough to "twist" the splines on the axles. In any case, I used to "twist"
the inner splines fairly regularly, and would replace the axle when the
splines had twisted one whole tooth. That is when the splines that did not
engage the rear end, became even with the adjacent spline which had been in
the diff unit. As the years went by, Triumph changed the design of the
axle,
so that the diameter of the axle was no longer the same all the way to the
splined area, but, decreased in diameter approx 2/3's of the way along the
shaft toward the splined end. (Much like they had done with the camshaft
after breakage was a problem). Being of the "bigger is better" camp, I
continued to hunt out the larger diameter axles, and continued to twist
them.
When I was forced to run the "decreased" diameter axles, I suddenly found
that I no longer twisted the splines off of them.
Now I realize that those old 4" tires just wouldn't generate the kind of
side
forces you can today, so I can not conjecture on the strength of the wheel
end of the axle. By the time I was having trouble with the wheel end of the
axle, my supply of straight diameter axles had long gone. I think that it
may be prudent to consider the differing axle diameter in the "build"
sheets
of these new axles.
As an aside, Ford (among others) has used the "shrink on spacer" on many of
their HiPo axles for years without any obvious "major" problems.
Always a little "twisted" myself...
Nick in Nor Cal
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