In a message dated 2/1/03 12:15:30 AM, paul@adventures.co.za writes:
<< > A quick comment on welding flanges to axles. Personally I wouldn't
do it
> unless I had an axle/flange combo that had excessive wear and I was just
> trying to bodge back together as a temporary fix. The problem with welding
> heat treated parts together is that you effect the heat treatment on the
> existing parts and now you have a weld that is totally different hardness.
> This creates serious stress risers and this is where the stress cracks will
> eventually develop and hence this is the point where the axle will
eventually
> fail.
Sorry, Bill, but nonsense! The parts are immobilised. All you are preventing
is the couple of
thou of movement between the splines. The welded joint takes no other stress
at all.
Paul
Sorry about the delay in responding to this. I have been moving and way
behind (even more so than normal) on lots of things. Anyway, I respectfully
disagree. Welding a joint such as this is going to affect the heat treatment
of all of the parts in question. Its not a big deal if all you ever do is
putt around in the bush or strip malls with your Rover but if you are using
it in an extreme manner, this welded portion is susceptible to cracking
because under extreme usage everything is flexing and stress cracks tend to
develop at these heat treat transitions, which is a stress riser. If you want
to weld it and then seriously thrash the rig, I would have the axle/flange
stress relieved. There are various ways to do it but if you were going to all
of that trouble, why not just buy better upgraded parts. When you are
designing and building high performance drivetrain parts you specifically try
to eliminate these types of stress risers.
In my opinion, I would still classify welding sloppy drive flanges to the
axles as a "bush" fix. Noting of coarse that there isn't anything wrong with
"bush" fixes as I have employed many of them myself over the years as
circumstances dictated such.
A couple of other points about spline wear on drive flanges that weren't
mentioned but should be for the sake of our collective communal knowledge.
Besides wildly different heat treat levels between the axle and flanges (the
problem with Series Salisbury's) and excessive backlash to start with (the
problem with Series 10 spline axles), there are a couple of other reasons
that cause excessive drive flange spline wear as follows:
1) Bent axle cases. The causes wear because every time the axle/flange makes
a rotation the splines rock back and forth. This can also effect the side
gear splines in the diff. You can also cause axle shaft failures with bent
axle cases because the shaft can bind on the spindle that it is now in
contact with. This generally isn't a problem with Rovers because there is
lots of clearance in this area. If you welded your axles/driveflanges in this
situation, the welded area would probably eventually break.
2) Excessive play in the wheel bearings. Same reason as above, this creates
movement between the shaft and the flange that really shouldn't be there.
This is why you should adjust your wheel bearings correctly and/or on the
slightly tight side.
3) Dry splines - a splined joint should be "wet", meaning that the joint
should be lubricated, usually gear oil. This lubrication cushions and
lubricates the splines in operation. When Rover added rear axle case oil
seals on the ABS equipped Range Rovers in 1990, they retained a two piece
rear axle. This was a dry spline setup and a few years later, stripped out
drive flanges on these rigs started appearing regularly. This is why Rover
converted these to a one piece axle (integral drive flange), which eliminated
the splined joint and hence the problem. Another example of this type of
spline wear problem is between the coupling of an LT 77 transmission and the
LT 230 transfer box on later model Rovers. Rover eliminated this by either
installing an oil slinger to throw oil up on the joint if it wasn't worn
excessively or installing a cross drilled gear if it was worn and in need of
replacement.
Bill
GBR
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