Here it is, my attempt at a square drive shaft. The first several are the superlift canablized..













^^ Here is the two pieces of square tube for the telescoping needed. Specs on the material: larger tube is 2", 3/16" wall, the smaller being 1-1/2", 1/8" wall

Drive shaft installed and in action:






Annddd after Round 1: trail-1, drive shaft-0






The weld penetrated the material on both side. The breakage occured at the damn weld itself

It did however last about half the length of the trail, which consumed a good 2+ hrs. Just abit too much stress and torque, I suppose. I will keep updated on Round 2 and further..

 

what was wrong the SL driveshaft.

 

very nice! looks good.

sucks about the breakage. isnt that cast steel? did you heat it before welding?

 

The slip-yoke was much too short for extention I need given the droop my front suspension has.

 

The portion I welded to may indeed be cast steel. And although I didn't heat it before welding, I had the welder (Miller 251 from work, capable of up to 1/2" thick) turned up for 5/16" material. I thought maybe I could get by with the heat. And, as I metioned, the weld itself broke. A good portion of the weld is still on the u-joint end. Not sure what my next step will be; havn't decided for sure. But I'll keep updates.

 

i have a couple pics uploading of the dshaft now. damn photobucket is being ghey.

 

On round 2 I would make sure to grind down the corners on the square tube to get a nice weld in there. Also cut a groove into the U joint side to penetrate down in there. You could do a root pass, then one above and one below that. Then cut some triangle gussets and run 2 on each side of the driveshaft. Preheat everything before welding.

 

I did grind a good 45 on the edges of the square tube. I passed on a 2nd or 3rd pass on the welds, which in heinsight was probably a bad call. Donny mentioned the gussets, and yeah, preheating will definitely be involved the next time around.

 

Miller 251 is a Mig right? I have been told if its cast steel it needs to be stick welded but heated first! it needs to be heated to like 400* before it is welded to.

 

they do it all the time. maybe not weld it to a yoke like that but square driveshafts do work. Although not for what I want it will never work.

I just run coils and links so the travel on the driveshaft does not need to be so severe

 

square driveshafts are where its at!
especially if it will only be spinning at low speeds on the trail

have you not seen all the "professionally made" drive shafts he's had come apart?

 

Welding with cast requires nickle rod and I believe is done most effectively with a stick welder. My understanding is that you can either preheat or keep the piece from getting too hot - only weld a little bit at a time. Preheat and slow cool is not necessary.

In the pic showing the broken yoke/shaft, it doesn't look like there is much material/weld on the yoke. I don't think it bonded well, something I believe the nickle would solve.

 

yep, thats what i was trying to say. lol

 

He should have left some of the material on the yoke ends. The used square tube over that material and welded it. theres alot of force on that weld just butt welded up to the yoke like that.

 

funny thing is a round one with spline shafts will work both at high and low speeds....

 

funny thing is unless you have a heavy wall on the round one it'll get destyored before the square one does

 

good idea. im sure you can get a yoke that has a square end on it too

 

doubtful. all those spines are stronger than 4 corners. just the square one is the cheap way out for so much travel.

again another good reason for a linked suspension i am just going to keep bring that back at ya! haha

 

Heavy wall Square tubeing is not going to break before a round shaft. Then even if the square deforms its still going to act as a giant spline up to a point. but as soon as the splines deform they are toast. I was convinced to used a square tube when I saw my Friends 4500 pound FJ40 sitting on the front square shaft and the shaft was spinning and actually chipped some peices off the rock. They are incredibly strong and simple.

 

the shaft worked great and he was doing all kinds of **** until it broke.

 

I'm not saying they wont work, I am jsut saying they are not for everyone and I know for a fact that you can get a round shaft that is just as strong if not strong than a square one. Not to mention it can be used on the street at high RPMs.

 

Hey man, I'd be using stick if I were you. Don't use mig on something like that if you want it to hold up... I'd say stick it with E6011 or E7018... You want it to have some give in the ductility, but also you want it strong... You're not gonna get the strength you need out of a MIG wire fed gun. Just my .02

 

neither of those are nickel rod. that is what he needs to use.

 

True... Forgot to add that in... My B