Drive shaft retube...wall thickness??

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IBCRUSN

IBCRUSN

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Sep 13, 2003
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Over the weekend I beached my 80 on a ledge and true to form I managed to barber pole the drive shaft and the dent in fairly impressive (for an 80). At any rate I've gotta have it re-tubed before BHCC and wanted some input on tube wall thickness before I drop the DS off. What do you guys recommend?
 
.120 wall....At least.
 
Thanks.

When the wall thickness is greater than .120" say .25" what are the potential issues? (balance, rotational mass, etc) I haven't ever worried about driveshafts before but I've noticed if you want to play in the rocks with a 6k lb truck you will eventually have to.
 
Most Driveline shops won't go over .12 wall if it is a street driven truck for balancing reasons. I run .25 in my front a .12 in the rear and bring a spare. My wrap bar does a very good job of protecting my rear D-shaft however.
 
IBCRUSN said:
Thanks.

When the wall thickness is greater than .120" say .25" what are the potential issues? (balance, rotational mass, etc) I haven't ever worried about driveshafts before but I've noticed if you want to play in the rocks with a 6k lb truck you will eventually have to.
Click to expand...

A heavier shaft is much more sensitive to balance issues. It also puts more stress on Ujoints and pinion and T/C output bearings. Just retubing with a little thicker material won't add a lot of weight. Toss in some Ag duty oversized slip joints along with some really beefy tube and the wieght can really climb.


Mark...
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

Stopped by the local heavy truck drive train shop after work today and good news. They'll do the re-tube with .120" for ~$100 plus any machining of the yokes if needed with only a one day turn time. I'll drop it off later this week and see how do.
 
If you dial it out right. You'd should be ok with .134-157" wall. I built one for my employee's 4-runner with .157 wall (5/32) appox. 34", saw no vibes at 55-60mph, but that's as fast as the 4-runner would go, so after that can't say for sure. If it's built true it should be fine.

My CJ5 rear shaft is .187Wall pretty short at 18.5" I seen no vibes at 80 mph. Any faster than that I'm paying more attention to the road and driving than any vibes.
 
.120 works well!
 
I've got a set of shafts here with .276 wall section. Maybe .300, I can't remember right now without going to look at them. 18 inch slip joints. Heavy agricultural duty stuff. They're HEAVY!. But they're straight and run true. Still a lot of stress on the joints and bearings as the suspension cycles and tries to move the shaft against the inertia and the rotational inertia (like a gyroscope).

Edit... wall section of .276. 2.5 inch schedule 80.



These were built to be bomb proof on the trail. And they are. But I don't think I will be running them on a rig that sees a lot of long distance driving. Even long distance trail use. Great for a weekend warrior though.


Mark...
 
Last edited:
Cam from IPOR has been running 3" schedule 40 for his driveshafts. I think he said that it fits the toyota yokes perfectly. They are super heavy but he had the whole weight of his 62 truggy on it a couple times at GSMTR as well as razorback he said and they arent even dimpled.
 
3" schedule 40... Neat.


Mark. I have no idea who your d-shaft guy was/is. All I know is whoever you had do mine did a great job. I have a few trail marks on them, and still running them. I wish I knew what the wall thickness is now that it has been brought up.
 
Actually they're sched 80. ;)

The ones under your '40 are pretty standard tubing. We used Dodge truck driveshaft tubes. Heavier than the Toy tube and a bit larger diameter too. Easy to find as well. Heck, if you can't find any new stuff, you can run by a scrap yard and grab an old truck shaft for almost nothing. Cut the ends off and you've got a nice long section to work with. It works nicely with the toy ends for retubeing ease. It's just about the perfect tube for all around real world use. Stout/strong, but not excessively heavy.


Mark...
 
Hi All:

Not to hijack this thread, but . . . . . . . :grinpimp:

I corkscrewed the front driveshaft on my FJ40 this last weekend. I'm sorta pissed since it got new u-joints a few years. Just what is involved with re-tubing a driveshaft?

When I hear about guys using square tubing to make heavy-duty front 'shafts i have to think "this cannot be that big of a deal!

For a front drive shaft on a part-time four wheel rig could one cut-off the damaged driveshaft tube and re-tube with donor material? Is the tube simply welded onto the flanges?

Thanks!

Alan

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Mark W said:
Actually they're sched 80. ;)

The ones under your '40 are pretty standard tubing. We used Dodge truck driveshaft tubes. Heavier than the Toy tube and a bit larger diameter too. Easy to find as well. Heck, if you can't find any new stuff, you can run by a scrap yard and grab an old truck shaft for almost nothing. Cut the ends off and you've got a nice long section to work with. It works nicely with the toy ends for retubeing ease. It's just about the perfect tube for all around real world use. Stout/strong, but not excessively heavy.


Mark...
Click to expand...
 
The re-tube from what the guy behind the counter says is they remove the old tube , perform any machining necessary to make the new tube fit the yokes, tack in the new tube, true the assy final weld, check for trueness, balance.

I have seen a couple local guys use a square tube front shaft largely because they are too cheap to have regular shaft made with a long enough splined section. The reasoning is for the slip joint if I understand them correctly. It is certainly not something I would want to run at street speeds.
 
Dropped off the rear DS today during lunch. There is a slight change in tube specs. To get a minimum of .120" I had to go larger than the 2.75" OD up to 3" OD, something about not having that size available. Not much drama but the wall thickness will to be .137" and the guy assures me there will be no issues with balance. The only down size that came up was the need to replace one of the U-joints as there was some slight play which sucks because the joints have less than 10K miles on them. I told the guy to replace both since it's nearly a total rebuild anyway. Depending on the guy in the brown truck it should be done by the COB tomorrow.
 
$230 later its done with two new joints. A little more than I planned for because of the U-joints but no biggie. we'll see how it fares at the Black Hills.

Thanks for the input.
 
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