kasteintf
2286
12
0
home depot's finest 2" black steel schedule 40 "driveshaft tubing"
very jaunty pinion angle on the ancient offset dana 60 (don't worry, it has a centered rear axle with the correct pinion angle now)
This was supposed to be a temporary driveshaft modification until I got my new rear axle in, and then I would take it to a driveline shop and have them retube it correctly and balance it. It runs perfectly smooth though... so smooth that I forgot I had commmitted this hackjob until about halfway into a Boston to Seattle cross country move. It has been in service for about 5k miles now and I see no reason to change it out, it runs smoother than the professionally built one in my Comanche with just 1.1 degrees more pinion angle than I was aiming for. I have done 95mph with this driveshaft (in Mexico.)
Cocainemoon
The thing that should not be
ufoara
better than PVC
tigerliketoightness
Welds look decent, nice work!
kasteintf
they look good from my house but that's about all I can say. I burned it in pretty hot since it has about double factory hp going through it and prioritized strength over looks.
IdiotSavantTinker
I had a homemade driveshaft in a Mazda Rx-7 once. It was smooth but it was a hack job. So I had a driveshaft shop refurbish another driveshaft for me, and once I installed it the car vibrated like a paint shaker on the highway.
kasteintf
time to go back to the hack job shaft!
isetprettygirlsonfire
How can you afford to buy steel at home depot?
isetprettygirlsonfire
And I have homemade shafts on one of my willys @op. Been in service for 25 years. It rarely sees over 45mph though. It looks good, especially for temp duty.
kasteintf
It was leftover material from a project years before - in approximately 2017 I had done a project that involved a lot of custom cut and threaded 2" sch40 from there, and they told me they were going to charge me for the whole 10ft length whether I took it or not, so I ended up with a few scraps leftover for the same price which went into my future project materials stockpile. I didn't use it until late 2020 when I fabri-cobbled this driveshaft.
isetprettygirlsonfire
Somehow I missed it was pipe, not tubing. Now I had my coffee haha. Scrap pile scores are the best!
moecurlylarry
I didn’t know Home Depot sold such steel. Do I understand correctly ,you made your own driveshaft from steel you bought at Home Depot? Wouldn’t a junkyard have been better and much less work?
IdiotSavantTinker
If one from the junkyard was the correct length, yes. Once you start swapping in stronger axles and installing lifts, your driveshaft needs change.
kasteintf
This is correct. This truck is a 79 J10 with a 00 E350 rear axle, a significantly bobbed bed and shortened wheelbase, an LS swapped in, a GMT400 era NV4500 transmission, a thick transfer case clocking ring and a hybrid lego-built NP241D W250 transfer case with a 32 spline NP241C input gear and a second NP241C short front output flange bolted onto the rear output, so there is literally no factory shaft of the correct length, joint configuration, and ujoint/flange sizes to match what I needed.
kasteintf
It's 2 inch black steel pipe out of the plumbing aisle - I needed heavy enough wall thickness and the correct diameter to turn down slightly for a pressfit into the original driveshaft tubing ID so that it would run true and concentric, then welded it together. The correct way is to put it on a lathe and cut the welds out, then weld on a new driveshaft tube of the correct length and rebalance.
moecurlylarry
Thank you
UnitConversionBot
2" ≈ 5.1 centimetres
UnitConversionBot
95mph ≈ 153 kilometres per hour
kasteintf
this is 2" schedule 40 pipe, which has an actual OD of 2.38" (60.5mm) and an actual ID of 2.067" (52.5mm.)
westPAguy
You're talking to a bot.
kasteintf
I'm correcting the silly bot that thinks every single unit needs converting without being aware of the difference between nominal and true sizes in case anyone actually gives a crap. Which is admittedly unlikely. I think I'll simply block the bot so it stays out of my comment sections in the future though.