Driveline tech is awesome! They have pretty good prices too... A lot of my buddies run them... And they're about 10 mins from my house

 

Better off calling Jess at high angle driveline. If you can think of it he can build it.

http://highangledriveline.com/

 

thanks for the intelligent words.

out here if you dont have wheel speed, your stuck. wheel speed = rpms, rpms = faster spinning driveshaft which means more vibrations from a square shaft.

either way like i said before LINKED suspension properly done will not need these insanely long expandable driveshafts!

 

its cast. looks like it in the pictures.

 

I am not bashing the square shaft but how come none of those guys build square shafts? at least i dont see any in the pictures?

 

because square shafts are homebrew tech, driveline shops have lots of expensive equipment to build round tube shafts that can be balanced.

 

You need to get a better fit between those two square tubes also. It looks to me like there's some slack in there and you may be getting a shock load on the driveshaft as well. If there's not any slack or space between the two square pieces disregard what I'm saying, but that's what it looks like to me.

 

i'll still trust a square driveshaft when my trucks weight is laying on it, rather than a round one

just because i've seen what happens, granted i've never seen a 1/4" walled round driveshaft in action

 

i am with you on that one zach,most of the rock crawlers i have seen have a round dom tube shaft on them.

 

So my Dad noticed the two pieces of the broken drive shaft and brought it up to me tonight when he got home. He said the u-joint end is probably made of a high-tempered alloy. He also noted as had I that most of the break occured in the weld, with one area that more of it broke off the u-joint and another spot where it broke off more of the steel tube. His solution is to use 309 or 310 (I believe those are the numbers he mentioned) stainless rod. He said its the 'all to end all fixes' when welding anything. Also, said as I thought: if it was cast the weld wouldn't have last but a second and all of the weld would have stayed on the steel tube.

We'll get to fixing it this weekend and I'll have updates following.

 

While there is some slack between the two pieces, and while any shock load may be a factor, the damn thing lasted for over two hours. I'll fix it this weekend and go from there. And according to my Dad, if welding with stainless rod doesn't hold it, nothing will. Then its onto a custom round shaft.

 

A custom round shaft wouldn't be a bad idea anyways. If you're running on the road, I think it'd be worth it. A square shaft makes for a great trail spare though.

 

he lives in San Diego.. why would he run it on the road? lol

 

I'm surprised it a high tempered alloy, good luck i want to see the result.

 

Good point dood. My Dad suggested similar.

 

hey kev hit up j.e.reel i told u before he makes **** crazy strong thick wall tubing the u joint will give out before the shaft and splines ever will downside is the price or just redo the square tube shafts strong and cheep u know where i go and actually wheel not like some web wheeler knowitalls and and the guys i roll with majority have spuare tube and have yet to see one with a problem and im gonna run one soon as soon as i get my duals in

all these are running square tube front and some rear ya they maybe toyotas but the crawl ratio they have put an insane amount of torque on these

 

and the others have d shafts made by j.e.reel

they can custom make anything
http://www.reeldriveline.com/

 

thats great but how many are driven on the street? ever?

 

i dont see why everyone is so worried about the noise on the street its not guna be that bad and its not your truck. the thing if its built right will be strong as hell and it will be cheeper than buying a new one some people like my self just cant go and spend 450 bucks or more on a drive shaft.

 

then dont! lol i'm just putting my opinion out there. Would I have a square shaft as a spare? sure why not. Run it all the time? no.

 

because it will rattle stuff like ring gear bolts loose, it happened to me in the rear because of the bent axle shaft

and i think thats what happened to the front gears of my truck too...

unless its somehow balanced your going to be destroying bearings too if you go fast

 

yep exactly. it will also destroy seals. transfer case does not like vibrations either.

 

So if he's got manual hubs then it'll only vibrate in 4wd, and you shouldn't be going that fast in 4wd anyways right?

 

yes. i agree with that. still not the best at any speed but for the price, its a comprimise.

as for some of the others mentioning rear driveshafts, that is just unpractical for anything to be ran on the street.

 

Update on the drive shaft..

Welded it up again (well my Dad, not myself) on Sunday with stainless rod. As you can see, my Dad is quite the welder


















Also, a note on the slop in the fitment of the smaller tube into the larger half. I discussed it with my Dad and he suggested I expand the overall outside dimension of the smaller tube by attatching strips of 16, 18 or 20 guage sheet metal.