Rear Axle mod --another variation ...
I figured that rather than bury this in my yerf saga thread or in any else's axle upgrade one, i'd pop a new one ....
Open to suggestions on this plan ....
Weakness of the stock spiderbox axle appear to be 2 main areas ...
Lack of adequate support at the ends.
A nasty little stress riser where the hub butts into the step up in axle diameter.
In setting up to see what replicating Ckau's (forgive me if credit is due someone else) dual-bearing per side upgrade, another approach sort of smacked me in the face.
The additional bearing carrier still gets installed and boxed in.
However, rather than just locating a bearing on the axle, i'm thinking about welding the bearing to the end of the hub at the side collar.
Additionally, the 90-degree step on the axle will get a fillet and build-up weld.
The weld will then get filed to match the axle OD and the bearing collar will get 2 more set screws These will be needed as the hub's splines will only be engaging the axle's splines in the area shown between the two marker lines on the hub.
Downside to this "creation include having the bearing retainer permanently captured between the hub and bearing and the need to cut and grind if either the hub or bearing fails.
Pluses include ...
eliminating the stress riser
Adding the second axle bearing support.
Adding about 1/2-3/4 inch width per side.
Other downsides??? Have at me with anything you can see.... Fingers are itching to start welding and i'm out of stuff to work on at the moment .... except for this ....
BTW... already worked out how to cut the old hanger plate to fit inside the rim ....
And dug out a 2-bolt collar shaft clamp from our old AMF bowling alley pinsetter motors that fits the axle perfectly--need to buy another.
Also was considering filling the space between the two bearings with sealed bearings in a tube that'd be gusset up to the new support all the way across, bit i think that might be a wee bit of overkill )))) i have a pile of sealed bearings from dead mower spindles that fit the bill ... LOL ...
Last edited by x-bird; 04-29-2012 at 03:08 PM.
|