Driveshaft Help Need - Please

[Peter Delaney]

Guys, I am going to replace my old uni / sliding spline shafts with new CV based shafts. The old shafts have too much play - about 10mm movement at the tyres with the inner ends locked.

Thanks to Dimi, I have a beautiful set of new CNC billet spindles with the Commodore flange & the Corvette splines, etc, so all I now need is the correct Commodore driveshafts.

And that is my problem - I understand that they are from a VS Commodore, but investigations to date seem to indicate that there were 2 different versions of driveshafts for the VS.

So, does anyone know exactly which ones should be used (and how to identify / specify them) ?

Any sources of reconditioned shafts would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks & Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

Pete I think the only difference is that one type floats both ends and the other one is fixed at one end. The length is about 18 3/4" collapsed which is the shortest of the Commodores(GM Holden). From collapsed to extended should be at least 1".
The end caps of the CV if original Commodore should fit nice --if they are the after market type which have a different shape may not fit ---just swap them out for the Commodore types.
All you need then is the CV C5 (Corvette) stub shaft, some M10 x 50 SHCS --bolt up and go

 

[Peter Delaney]

Thanks Chris - we are narrowing things down a bit now !

But I am still a bit concerned about the length of the shafts - Dimi measured his recently & found :

455 closed
490 open (==> 35 throw)

These seem quite a bit shorter than your figures :

476 closed (18.75")
501 open (assuming a 1' throw)

I'm not sure whether Dimi measured from flange-face to flange-face, or total length including a locating boss (if there is one). Even if there are bosses & Dimi only measured across the flange-faces, it would imply that the bosses are each some 10mm deep - a bit hard to believe !

The flanges on the new spindle / stub shaft are 24mm thick - is that in the same ballpark as the flanges on the stub shafts that you use ?

I know that I am being a bit anal about this, but I had a lot of trouble with the old sliding spline shafts (at full droop, the splines dug into the cork dust shield, so I had to get 5mm machined off the splines).

Any further light that you can shed on this issue would be hugely appreciated.

BTW - do you sell the driveshafts ?

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[Darrell]

Hi Peter my five cents worth. Fit the shafts up and check out the freedom of rotational movement through the suspension range. You may find as I did that on full droop the shafts lockup ( a problem if you are intending getting air ) Peter Ranson has 6mm alloy spacers at a very reasonable price, presto your good to go. You will need longer bolts.

Darrell DRB#46

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

Pete this is what (I) we've been doing over the years :-
and, no I don't deal in shafts --they are pretty common though -- wreckers or drive line services. The shafts in 'ole # 17 were second hand from the wreckers some 8 years ago --immediately put into service and never been looked at since-- the car has done at least 80,000+ hard klm (same with the G50 I might add)

 

[Peter Delaney]

Thanks Guys - I think that I have it sorted now.

Dimi's spindles / stub shafts have a thicker flange, specifically designed to remove the need for spacers & longer bolts.

His shaft measurements were flange-face to flange-face, so this explains the difference between his figures & Chris's overall lengths (end-cap to end-cap).

The ideal seems to be the VS Commodore "fully floating" shafts as these will let me instantly tell if there is any binding anywhere throughout the travel range - if there is always some "end play", you are ok. With the shafts fixed at one end, you would never be able to tell whether it was the shaft or the shocks stopping the suspension travel.

Again, thanks for your help - much appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

Many years ago I created these nice C5 billet stub shafts to take CV shafts instead of the universal joint sliders.--- unfortunately we also offered a modified C5 stub to CV for half the price-- that our bretheren Titus :laugh: seem to prefer .