Drive shafts

[Islander]

I'm building a woods buggy that will probably never see a speed above 30-40k.  I'm thinking about doing a set of square tubing driveshafts like I seen on the Cheap Jeep project on Xtreme 4X4.  I have no budget for after market driveshafts.  Anyone have any reasons that it will not work?   

[artie on edge]

Only thing I can see apart from the obvious "Why would you?" is that the square shoulder on the shaft will hit rocks and logs pretty hard and then have to flex/bend off them when they spin, whereas a round shaft will simply slide and not 'catch'.

Also mateing the square shaft to the uni yokes etc, doable but not ideal.

Why the need for square shafts? If its because of slip joints get some from the wreckers and build your own shafts. You said this thing isnt going very fast.

[trojan]

I'm with Artie (surprise ) you can get a shaft cut and balanced rather cheaply. If you have access to a lathe long enough to take the shaft you can do it ya self

[Islander]

I see your point (s)  I was just wondering about them because I seen them done on a project Jeep on tv and they seemed to take a hell of a lot of abuse and they had alomst nothing into them for money.  As for getting driveshafts balanced or even just cut, there is no shops in the my province that do that, so I would have to go the next one over to get it done, I'd be out a few hundred bucks just in travel to the shop.  I ran into this problem with the S10. 

[trojan]

Cut her in the middle, "splint" with 3 or more pieces of angle to get it "straight". Hit it with the ol' faithful metal glue gun (don't glue the angle on)... It'll be sweet....








he says....






trust me..... I'm a computer programmer

[fabr]

I'm with Artie (surprise ) you can get a shaft cut and balanced rather cheaply. If you have access to a lathe long enough to take the shaft you can do it ya self

For those speeds you don't even need a lathe.Hell a hacksaw and grinder will do just fine. Weld it back and don't even worry about balance. An old time racer friend of mine built many shafts for people just that way in the day of 11second 1/4 times being impressive. None ever failed.

[SPEC]

Our old Timberjack skidder had squaredrive shafts but they were about 4"x4"  But that traveled really slow
I think that you would be fine just welding up the stockers, Trojan has a good way...I have found that if you cut the weld off with a die grinder with 2 or 3 wizz wheels on it, pull the yoke end out of the tube, cut to length, and slide the yoke back in you end up with a really nice driveshaft, Just be sure that your 90* from the other one

[RC51 Rhino]

Square reciever tube is made on a mandrel and is smooth inside...that is what we use. They are hella stout and you have all the slip length in the world! the square doesn't hang up on stuff like one might think, either.

[Voodoochikin04]

he said square tube, and it sounds like everyone else thinks just square pto stock.

[SPEC]

 

[Islander]

I was thinking of the receiver tube myself, I can't see major problems with it, just some minor ones.  I'll probably try to modify the stock ones first, then if I screw that one up, I can always try the square tubing.