The rear CV shafts aren't equal length because the diff sits off center. The input is centered to the tunnel on the car, but the output's are shifted to one side. I'm guessing it was to save space.
The rear CV shafts aren't equal length because the diff sits off center. The input is centered to the tunnel on the car, but the output's are shifted to one side. I'm guessing it was to save space.
Who knows? Maybe I may mount the differential off to one side as well, to make room for, say, the exhaust and drive shaft.
The PTU output is dead center in the exhaust tunnel, so the rear diff unit input has to be centered also.
phantomrt ,maybe this talk of you doing an awd swap would be better put into a whole new thread instead, you should start one and take pics for us to show us some of these parts your talking about. hard to visualize some things.
That separate thread will come. I am still accumulating parts and putting out fires. It is a long way away. I have a few customers that I need to get taken care of before the real winter season cold comes. The house needs to be re-shingled badly, and my front entry door is rotted away. I need to line up machinists and custom drive shaft suppliers to get the stuff I need. Needless to say, I am a really busy person.
Also, I am considering building my my rear suspension out of aluminum to save on weight, which I am planning on being much like what Carlos used, except I'll be using the stock coil spring locations, where I am not sure what I am going to do about getting the rear spring seat attached to the trailing arm if they become aluminum as well. One idea is to chop off the trailing arm, and weld a plate on the end of it in order to bolt up the aluminum rear "axle". I still have to figure out what I am going to use for backing plates for the hubs and such. I have been trying to find simple ways to NOT copy what Carlos did, but that is proving difficult.
just think it'd be a better idea to start your own thread instead of putting it into this one.
also i am a welder/fabricator by trade and using fabricated (welded) aluminum structure or structures for your suspension is a disaster waiting to happen, when you weld aluminum, lets say 6061 t6, it looses its t6 heat treat and becomes at least 50% weaker, thats why you never see welded aluminum pieces in anything other than light weight things, motorbikes, atv's, mountain bikes. etc. the majority of aluminum you see in suspensions in cars are hardened castings and forgings. and using an aluminum axle in a "axle" where is will be subjected to a torsional load over and over will result in a catastrophic failure, unlike steel aluminum doesnt stretch too much before is fractures and comes apart. you never see aluminum sway bars, right?
nearly any axle manufacturing company can cut you new shafts, depending on if the shaft necks down after the splines, you may have to have whole new shafts made.
You are correct in that the suspension setup works by the entire "axle" assembly twisting in order to articulate, so that alone shoots down the aluminum idea because aluminum definitely does not like doing that. But I can say that there are plenty of welded aluminum automotive structural components out there, such as GM's subframes, which I have never seen any such failures of. But then, they do not twist around under any normal conditions. But then again, all GM products and designs are defective by default... ha ha.
Years ago, I was looking to make the U-joints in my AWD Stealth's propeller shaft serviceable, since the propeller shaft's U-joints are not serviceable by original design intents. Mitsubishi says to just buy a new driveshaft when the original gives out at a cost of over $1k. It was not a difficult operation for any competent machinist--destroy the old U-joint cups and cross, bore the yoke .010" larger to accept U-joints that you can actually buy, and then.... well, that was about it. You could go as far as machining a groove for a new cir-clip, or just peen / tack weld the new cups in place like the originals were. A person wouldn't even have to balance the darn thing afterwards. I brought a short section of the propeller shaft to two local custom drive shaft shops, one being Proven Force Clutch & U-Joint who are known nation-wide and the guy behind the counter had absolutely no interest in helping me. Both shops I went to responded to me saying that "we don't do custom drive shafts," yet they hey had the exact term "Custom drive shafts" on their big sign outside. It was just stupid. It is really tough to find good help around here. I am hoping that I'll have better luck with getting CV axles re-sized. I have no idea what is involved in the process, so I'll have a lot of learning to do.
gm parts ford gt chassis, etc. are all heat treated afterward, tubing is anealed prior to welding or made in anealed state, and the casting is unhardened then the whole unit is heat treated in a furnace after fabrication. same as a motorbike swing arm for ec as well. heat treating is not cost effective for the individual. we have one where i work, for heat treating forgings and castings for aerospace use, and its really expensive.
Probably only because it's automated, I mean if you wanna sit in your backyard all day opening dampers and feeding charcoal to your fire trench, while monitoring temperatures and times, then you can do it too...
DD1: '02 T&C Ltd, 3.8 AWD. DD2: '15 Versa Note SV, replacing.. DDx: '14 Versa Note SV << freshly killded :( ....... Projects: '88 Voyager 3.0, Auto with shift kit, timing advance, walker sound FX muffler on 15" pumpers wrapped in 215/65/R15 H rated Nexens.... and a '95 phord escort wagon PnP head << Both may need to go :( ..... I like 3.0s ... so??? ... stop looking at me like I've got two heads!
like how the japanese swordsmiths do it?
As RW stated, heat treating is definitely possible on your own. You will be hard pressed to get it to aerospace standards, but it is certainly possible to do a good enough job to bring parts back up to a reasonable hardness. It would certainly be time consuming and take some patience, but it CAN be done.
There are many homemade structures made out of aluminum that is welded. It simply has to be welded correctly.
nothing you can do about softening a t6 or other hardened aluminim after welding it, other than aneal and re heat treat, otherwise you make due as is.
back on track i want updates on this omni if possible, is it still down or is it back together?
I don't thing General Motors is smart enough to go through all that complicated stuff.
I do feel out of place for asking, but now that Carlos is no longer with us, what happened to his car?
I'm pretty sure you can't anneal an aluminum alloy to begin with. Aluminum alloys are "age" hardened which causes components in the solid aluminum matrix to precipitate out with time and temperature. Once that occurs, the only way to get everything "dissolved" again is to completely melt the alloy. Typically, if you try to heat treat an aluminum alloy that has already been hardened you're just going to end up with a soft, low strength mess that can't be undone.
What you guys said is possible with iron alloys, as they are not age hardened and their microstructure changes are reversible.
Not quite melt, but to get it glowing orange.... which could be a problem for i) burning it, and ii) stopping a structure flopping out of place.Originally Posted by jckrieger
DD1: '02 T&C Ltd, 3.8 AWD. DD2: '15 Versa Note SV, replacing.. DDx: '14 Versa Note SV << freshly killded :( ....... Projects: '88 Voyager 3.0, Auto with shift kit, timing advance, walker sound FX muffler on 15" pumpers wrapped in 215/65/R15 H rated Nexens.... and a '95 phord escort wagon PnP head << Both may need to go :( ..... I like 3.0s ... so??? ... stop looking at me like I've got two heads!
That story starts about here: http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/sh...l=1#post833358
There's a bit more before this post, but since you were interested in what happened to the actual car, that post should be a good start...
Mike
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
- Edmund Burke
They most certainly CAN be annealed AND re-heat treated.
i think he is mixing up 7000 series with all the other types.
We shouldn't hijack this thread any further. It looks like you *can* age harden the welds like the parent material, but I'm still not convinced that you don't risk over-aging the already-tempered areas when you try to age the welds at high temperature. I'm not sure I'd recommend this process to somebody who is not a professional at heat treating aluminum. With that said, depending on the alloy, the material may age reasonably well at room temperature given enough time. There are just so many variables that can't be properly conveyed via an internet forum.
If anyone is interested, I'm including a Youtube link that explains the heat treatment of aluminum. It illustrates how it is very different from iron alloys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phhXy1XgLLs
i have his car now
i got the car runing again pretty good then the timming belt broke on me i have not yet fixed it but the car will be fixed by the time summer gets here
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote