Grind the corners off those gears and glue covers to the cone shaped areas?
I think the car is drastically lighter than the original designed diff.
Grind the corners off those gears and glue covers to the cone shaped areas?
I think the car is drastically lighter than the original designed diff.
I think the styrofoam bowl is a great start on a epoxyglasscover. Think Nocones bodywork style.
TurnerX19 said:I think the styrofoam bowl is a great start on a epoxyglasscover. Think Nocones bodywork style.
No, I realized what he is doing. Cut bowl radially, lay flat on 18-16ga, trace pattern, cut, zap with metal glue-gun, metal cover
This thing is awesome! Strong work!
Mr_Asa said:TurnerX19 said:I think the styrofoam bowl is a great start on a epoxyglasscover. Think Nocones bodywork style.
No, I realized what he is doing. Cut bowl radially, lay flat on 18-16ga, trace pattern, cut, zap with metal glue-gun, metal cover
Yes, except I used a piece of scrap aluminum flashing, and a zip tie.
It actually holds itself in place really nicely since the metal is trying to spring outward, and it sits inside the lip of the wheel spacer. I do want to be able to remove it relatively easily if I need to. If I have issues with it moving around I'll use a bit of rtv to hold it in place. Or maybe I'll tape it to the bearing race on the small end of the cone.
Ok, let's catch up on the last couple days here. Basically just had to reassemble everything. Set the rear toe at about zero. Bled the brakes, and setup the bias toward the front to start.
While completing the assembly, I realized that I didn't leave enough room to get a tool on the mount bolt closest to my brake caliper mount. With no easy way to cut this little ear off, I spent about 30 minutes doing it with the Dremel. Had I thought about it before I welded it the same cut would have taken 15 seconds on the bandsaw. Oh well, it gave me enough clearance to get a tool on the bolt.
After all that was done, I was able to tighten everything up in the rear!
I did a bunch of other buttoning up, did an oil change, connected the battery (engine did fire up, not that I was worried), filled the coolant, added gas, strapped on the harnesses, and took it for a drive around the block. With that success, I loaded it on the trailer I rented. Mr asa will be happy to know that with the new suspension the ride height has been raised just enough and the car goes right into the trailer without bottoming out now.
Shortly after, the enclosed trailer choice paid off.
Ready for testing tomorrow!
Apparently I got behind posting the hours I've worked. I'm at 812.
Didn't take an hour 800 picture. Ooops.
I am still kinda concerned with the cone. Too much grease slings out of that and it'll climbe "up" the cone and out. Yeah?
Well, how did the test and tune go?
In reply to hobiercr :
I was also wondering...
hobiercr said:Well, how did the test and tune go?
Not well. I've been sort of avoiding this thread as I work through my emotions about it (as well as have been busy planning redemption).
It was cold and wet most of the day, but we did work the first heat and things were starting to dry out by the second heat. We had an opportunity.
So I hopped in the car, drove up to the start line, hammered on the launch, did a 4 cone slalom, shifted, took a right hander, and suddenly had no more acceleration when I pushed the go pedal. Crap.
The course workers pushing me back to grid diagnosed it for me:
Yep. Broken axle. While I actually have a spare axle, I of course didn't bring it with me to the track. So we pushed the car right back in the trailer.
It was glorious for those 15ish seconds though.
So, not much testing done, didn't get Nocones a chance to drive, but the good news is we highlighted a problem area. At lunch before a long sad drive home, Nocones and I talked about all kinds of possible solutions. We postulated that the issue was the trailing arm was able to move laterally too much, and talked about potential solutions. None are great because all will bind the suspension and change the roll centers and stuff we designed.
When I got home and unpacked, I found that the real problem is I am an idiot.
Long ago when I mocked up the locations of the hubs, I carefully measured the width of everything with the CV boots "at rest" (meaning I wasn't pulling out or pushing in). I assumed that "at rest" would have put the joint in the middle of it's useful range. That was a pretty bad assumption it turns out. And then I never took the boots off to double check because eewww, messy.
But now that it is broken, it's easy to see that I really shorted myself on shaft length.
Here's full droop. Full compression is not much better. I'm honestly surprised this worked for 15 seconds.
So, we had done all this work based on axles we already had (and were in budget, factory engineered, etc) but I made everything else around them so that they are too short by 1 or 2 inches.
I feel so dumb for not taking the boots off to check the "at rest" position of the joints. Basically the at rest position was at maximum outward travel and zero angle. NOT the middle of the useful range.
Also, now I need to find a solution to the issue. And fast. More on that shortly.
Sounds successful to me!
I say we'll done!
First up was scouring the internet for CV interchange info. One resource I found was here: http://goworldparts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Worldparts-CV-Axles_Quick-Specs_May-20151.pdf, and there are a plethora of threads on GRM similar to this one when others need similar info: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/cv-axle-splines/62851/page1/
I found one that had a chance of matching my outer but being a bit longer. It was the left side from the venerable, high performance, manual transmission 2002 Saturn L200. The inner spline was wrong, but I am hoping that the tulips are the same inside so that I can use my tulip with the rest of the Saturn shaft.
A welder and some pipe .....and a hacksaw
As a worst case solution, maybe you can reposition the RH trailing arm and shock mount to move them further inboard? It would cost you nothing in the budget just time and effort. This can be fixed; this is why you test.
Glad it was found in testing!
Yeah man, you got this. Any break is unfortunate, but this one is totally surmountable and you clearly have the required skill set. Onward and upward.
Thanks for the support all. It just really sucks because I tried to design and build the whole thing to use OEM systems as a unit, to avoid these types of shenanigans. And I berked that up, and here I am playing shenanigans.
But as my wife told me last night (God I love her) "You're allowed to have a pity party for yourself, but it ends tonight. Tomorrow you go fix it."
One thing I had been working on during my pity party was the CV axle cross reference. The local FLAPS got me a Saturn L series CV.
And it is pretty durn close to working. Outer spline is nearly perfect, length is good (if actually a bit on the long side, but would work), but the inner tripod is not an exact match. It has 1.355 diameter rollers and the rollers I have are 1.399 diameter.
This is an amount of slop that if I was in the parking lot at the challenge I would slap it in and try, but too much for me to plan to drive 2000 miles round trip to try.
I also tried removing the snap rings and swapping the tripod thing from one shaft to the other. Wrong diameter, wrong spline.
Unfortunately this is a "so close but no cigar" solution.
Cardone 609274 or anything that fits a 99-01 Saab 9-5 should swap right in but with about 1 to 1-1/2" extra length.
Know anyone with a lathe who could help you extend the shafts? Low enough speed at wheel speed and low enough torque in this car that you can probably get away with a basic, lathe-assisted cut-add-weld-sleeve-weld job.
maschinenbau said:Cardone 609274 or anything that fits a 99-01 Saab 9-5 should swap right in but with about 1 to 1-1/2" extra length.
That's really interesting, thank you for calling it out. How do you know?
I originally didn't think it was a match because even though the number of splines is the same on the outer (33), the Saab uses a larger nut and I thought that would mean larger shaft diameter (m22 vs m20). However, the Saab 9-5 uses a wheel bearing that cross-references to the Saturn L series!!! That means the outer spline should be the same. Also, I know the cobalt manual trans and the Saab 9-5 trans are closely related if not exactly the same.
In reply to maschinenbau :
If this works, I am buying you a beer.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
All I did was search that Worldparts catalog you linked above, then found the equivalent US Cardone part number with some google-fu, plugged that number in to Rockauto to find the makes and models, then compared the specs and pictures on Rockauto of axles for Ion Redline vs axles for early Saab 9-5. They look awfully similar so I hope it works out! They must be very similar trans because it's the same axle left vs right just like with the Ion/Cobalt, even for both Saab engines the 2.3 and 3.0 V6. So you can probably junkyard it too. There was one other match that was only 1" longer, I think for Saturn Vue, Equinox, Torrent, etc.
In reply to maschinenbau :
"All I did..." lays out multistep plan that doesn't necessarily occur to even this demented group of automotive manipulators.
You are the king of bending stock parts to your will.
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