Ed, i had a question for ya, when one is messing with the driveshaft on a car people always say "Make sure you mark it now so you can put it in the same place!" now what happens when one buys a new driveshaft? is marking it a old wives tale then or is there some formula to this?
In the late 80's my dad got me a job at a driveshaft shop with a guy who was german. He taught me how to pop ujoints out of a driveshatlft with a ball peen hammer. He also taught me how to weld the driveshafts by hand. After they cooled naturally, we hammered the weld at the low point to bring it into 10/1000 of an inch. No water cooling and no ujoint press. We also used a hammer to install the end yolks. We did everything from dragster half shafts , to cat d90 driveshafts and were the premier shop in the chicago market. It took a special skill to build shafts with a hammer. Anyone can use hydraulics to press a shaft together amd that is how you can keep the payroll lower. Imo. The hydraulic process did look cool. It wasnt easy using a hammer, but I wouldnt trade it for the hammer skills I still have from that job.
Biggutter333 this is what I do for a living and we use hammers and never only use water to cool when we pull a shaft strait with a torch. Also alternating where u start your welds can counter how much the weld pulls the shaft.
Back in the day when I was 15, I used strip my old BSA C10L down using just a hammer and a screwdriver, never had any problem with removing the head and jug like this, all the nuts had notches in them so they could be tapped undone and done up using the screwdriver engaged in the notch, happy days..
This was amazing info! Very detailed without going into useless info. I am supposed to make a driveshaft in autocad for my engineering class and this definitely helped me get a better understanding of literally everything I needed for it. Thank you!
great to a see a hard working guy , building a sweet truck part . A true tradesman , knows his job and how to use the tooling . that's all you can ask for.
We use to own a driveline shop not far from there in the high desert brings back memories they have pretty much all the same equipment we did well done
I built driveline for quite a few years in my youth. There are methods and balancers that cut the time for this build by at least 75% of the time is see here (I know its edited). This guy is very thorough and i appreciate that.
Start your weld on the high side, one steddy pass, it will be near at 000" Try marking a .000 one and see what it does Never water cool the weld till it gets somewhat cool by air.I have not ballanced any , make them straight. Try the large truck Life-Line with hollow spline that goes oval while welding. I made 2000 in 2 years and built trans. and rear ends at that time. Spicer makes a bar , you can 3 jaw first end with the bar , put slip yolk on . then secod yolk . It's fast . I had to bore tube on trucks they are .012" tight , Too tight , bored to .004" .( 3 Piece Drive line with 2 carrier bearings $3700.00 , 6 hours , Good Money ) . If I do this again I will power feed the weld lathe . I used a hand wheel to turn , Circle with V on tube ajustable . Thanks for video.
We have a place near my house called Henderson Driveline & Axle, and they do great work. They're in Grafton, Ohio. I've had my chevy trucks and a Ford truck drives haft built by them several times now. They're not rude because you don't know what you're doing. They give you all the information to get your vehicle moving and they build a great product. These guys do quality work as well. I hate to say it's cheap but for the kinda quality it's definitely worth it 👌
***EP super premium is a lithium base grease. It's very good quality, but not recommended to mix with polyurea bases [sometimes used in sealed bearings]. If u-joints have a zerk fitting, make sure you know what you're pumping. Should you mix the two accidentally, it's best to clean and regrease your bearings. Things won't fail instantly, but failure will be early left uncorrected.
great job amigos!! but be careful when polishing the drive shaft, specially with long sleeve shirts..because it can grab you and hurt you really bad or kill you.
Having to witness at age 10 ,my father almost torn to pieces by a rotatating pto driveshaft which grabbed him by a saggy armpit of the coveralls he was wearing untill it left him a naked blood mess and barely alive by the time it let go of him was all the lesson I needed on not wearing long sleeves near spinning drive lines.
35 year ASE Mater Tech here. As shop Foreman and General Manager I ask: "Where the hell are your jackstands?" If this is the second time I ask you this question you can pick up your last check from the office on your way home tonight.
Johnny Davis yeah I especially liked the part where he used those new needle bearings to press in the ends of the drive shaft... Hammered on it some... Then welded it with them in. Not to mention ruining the weld by running water over in afterwards... Or measuring exact measurements with a tape instead of a set of calipers....or getting under a car with only a floor Jack holding it up. I'm sure I missed lots of his other screw ups but besides them... Yeah he knows... How to speak English at least I guess.
I did that when I worked for Wagner Mining Equipment co. I built big ass drivelines for underground mining equipment. Great job worked by myself didn’t have to deal with shop B/S great job I can do that all day long , low stress level. And every machine that rolled out of the plant I’d look hay my drivelines at work.😃😃😃
@@stevee7774 the guy that was doing drivelines for years got tired off it and wanted to go out on the shop floor. Once I heard about it through the grape vine , I jumped on it right away. I told the guy your nuts to go back out on the shop floor and having to deal will all the Bullshit. Work orders and supplies came in and completed drivelines went out. I could crank out D-lines in no time. The big point on my fast speed was I had blueprints for every job with the diamensions already figured out. It was just cut and weld. On the hot orders I’d crank them out so fast the supervisors would come looking for the order and I’d say their gone and at the paint shop, they where amazed. Doing that level of work the supervisors just left me alone, it was a awesome job.
Man this brings memories ! This was my first duty as a young tool maker I start as tool maker doing this job when I was 16 .im 40 now. Seen this video remains me how fucking stress I was doing this being scare to fuck it up lol and get my ads run off .by the way nothing clean as this shop lol
My driveshaft shop in the San Gabriel Valley does not have a water hose in it, all metal is preheated before welding, then cooled naturally before balancing. U-joints are pressed in at the end and clean grease is used. THIS VIDEO is a great example of of how sloppy and quick work is accomplished and made to look good in the end.
Also his prices in the VIDEO are way over priced. I've never paid more than $150 for a competition 1000HP rated driveshaft (I supplied the yokes and Spicer joints)
One very important thing when measuring for the drive shaft is the car must be at ride height. Not with the suspension drooped down at all or with to much weight in the back. Thought I would give that as a tip is all!! Cool video though!!
Can someone explain the torch straightening to me? When i was young didnt have the money for professional so always have and will make my own. Nothing more than 400 hp, 480 tq. I get them to balance them for about 50$ is the tube and sleeve pinching when the weld pulls? And do you use the torch to adjust that and sometimes also use the pinch/ pull to correct the other side??? I usually drill several holes around and weld them further down before welding the top. Wouldnt you want to heat the entire thing, let it cool even then just balance it and not mes with heated friction tightening/ adjustments that could self re adjust? Or are they stretching the metal for permanant placement? Was looking at a few old ones i made when young. No balance weights on many of them, some one side, a few both sides because the shop said they were perfect. (They werent being lazy either. If they didnt need balancing i didnt get charged but they still sanded, painted and returned them with their logo. Id offer to pay but they only let me when it needs it. Never had one need a weight biger than 2 quarters and i still have some of my shafts running 10+ years no problems. i run everything hard. Also curious about the force they use to press the shaft on, that cant be good on those new u joins.
Long sleeves up against a drive shaft spinning at nearly 2k rpm? No thanks, I'll keep my arms (and life) intact. All the safety nitpicking aside, nice work guys!
Is it wise to be quenching the weld?? Do they not always balance at a certain speed like the wheel balancers or do you have to go through the rev range 🤔??
It'd be interesting to see how the entire process could be done better. The way it is done here it's a bit of ThomasArt.... and less of a production engineering event. At 6:26 he measures the out of the box parts he knows well. At least you'd think he'd know them well. The size of a particular bearing is typically a constant.
Two things surprised me for a machine shop. First, measurement are made with a regular tape instead of a fast , precise and simple caliper....and after welding the balancing weight, was the shaft rechecked ( for the weight added by the welding)?
Yes on tube with a small wall thickness it will always warp. I compensate with a little old fashion experience on the wall thickness and warpage. Most of the time leaving about 1 or 2 thousands run-out will compensate with a single weight welded on with .083 wall. Also tube diameter will change this because weights will be less effective on say 2 1/4" od wall tubing.
On an old mercedes diesel has anyone ever re ousted the shaft defeating the flex coupler 3 longer bolts on each end direct drive. I filled in the motor mounts and hanger bearing mount with eurathane so their more solid so they don't tear or flatten out. So again 6 longer bolts direct drive and let the U joint t be the flex point only,how many times have I been tempted to try it to no longer need new flex disc's anymore.
I was just under my truck taking measurements for my driveshaft. Thankfully I was using jack stands, because I noticed when I went to take the stands out and lower back down: My jack had went down! I always use jack stands anyway, but I was definitely glad I did this time.
YIKES! "this guy makes a lot of money for Inland Empire" ..... Good god! I hope he measures the lash on those caps after he puts the retaining clips in!
Try balancing at lower rpms. Like 800-1200. Ive learned that its best to balance it before it resonates. Im balancing on a Shenck HGB-30B. When balancing dynamicaly u need to calibrate it. Never works when im having resonans.
