9 replies to this topic

[Shingler4596]

How long are the all speed CG13 driveshafts? Wondered of they would be close to mine and usable as I had a shaft snap on me Friday lol

[Archived2]

Got any pics of your snapped shaft?

[McMini 22]

Yes, more info required!  I'm just starting to think about making up my driveshafts and could hopefully learn from your (bad) experience.

[Shingler4596]

No photos but basically they were lathed down press fitted into a sleeve and welded one of the welded end gave way that's All. It's fixed now, considering they were home made and the it's 103bhp and doing far too many wheelspins I'm not too shocked one gave way but it's been welded stronger then before now so should last

[McMini 22]

I still have mine to do. I intend to turn the ends of the shaft so that one has a press fit pin into the other. When pressed together there will be a V to weld. When welded and checked for true I will turn the weld down and fit and weld a sleeve over the join.
This appears to be the accepted way to do them.

I take it yours weren't welded under the sleeve?

[Shingler4596]

No not welded under the sleeve. Just press fit into the sleeve and it was a tight press believe me lol honestly I doubt the weld in the centre would have made a huge difference. It was probably just a duff weld. We're using a small mig with the cheap regulator from machine mart and the screw in 110 gas bottles... probably don't put out enough gas for big welds like that!

[McMini 22]

These small MIGs are okay for sheet metal but struggle on anything past about 3mm. You need something heavier to get the penetration.

Is it salvageable?

[lawrence]

The chap who made mine ran a high tensile threaded bar through the middle and said I need to just make the final adjustment if I want to align the splines and then weld up the v

The reason her said he had the threaded bar in the middle was that if the weld broke the threaded bar would prevent total failure apparantly

[McMini 22]

The chap who made mine ran a high tensile threaded bar through the middle and said I need to just make the final adjustment if I want to align the splines and then weld up the v

The reason her said he had the threaded bar in the middle was that if the weld broke the threaded bar would prevent total failure apparantly

 

I'm not sure why you would need to align the splines. 

Welding high tensile threaded bar will have an effect on the strength of the bar.  Low carbon steel threaded bar would achieve the same thing but would be difficult to maintain the "true" between the two shaft ends.

 

There are plenty on here who have welded shafts and are running much more power than a Micra conversion.  How have they done them?

[Shingler4596]

Shaft was totally salvageable. The way we did it by turning the ends down quite far down the shaft and having a big sleeve on it meant it was easy to slot back together, ground down the broken weld and went over it again but did a few passes making sure it was good.