G50 Drive Shaft Spacers/Adapters

[Peter Delaney]

Does anyone know if the current spacer/adapters are still 3/4" thick ?

Mine were probably made around 1998 or so & are 3/4". The reason that I ask is that mine do not appear thick enough - with the suspension dropped, I can not quite get the shafts to extend far enough to mate correctly with the spacers - the splines hit their stops with about 1mm gap between the drive shaft flanges & the spacer face.

I can tighten up the drive shaft flange bolts & pull things together, but something must be giving to allow this (perhaps the urethane bushes on the inner A-arms) ? The adjustments at the outer end of the A-arms are pretty much wound right in, so the problem is not being caused by having the uprights/hubs set too far out.

Apart from the stresses that this must be putting on the g'box drive shafts & the outboard uni saddles, it is probably the cause of my remaining clunks from the rear end as the splines bottom out.

So, I am thinking of getting a new set of thicker spacers made up (say an extra 1/4"), but before going ahead, wondered if the newer ones were thicker anyway.

Any clues guys ?

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[dave harris]

Hi Peter,

Mine are 3/4 inch thick. As I recall (they are mounted on the car now) the back side is slightly recessed to fit over the G50 flanges and I can't tell by how much.

If you need me to, I can dig out the drive shafts and extend them to see what they measure to see if there is a difference in that measurement.

 

[Peter Delaney]

Hi Dave,

Thanks - once I had a closer look, I can see that you are right about the recess on the inside of the spacers - looks like 1/8" exactly, so the true thickness of the spacers is really only 5/8".

As your car is a much later chassis # than mine, I am guessing that all spacers are the same, so that points the finger at the drive shafts.

Again when I really looked at them, I found that on one side, the inner part of the spline's screw-on dust cover (surrounding the smaller shaft) has been pulled/bent out a bit. Something inside is clearly hitting the dust cover quite hard !

I'll pull this apart today & see what's inside - should be interesting, as I can't actually see how there can be anything in there that could create an "end-stop" inside a set of sliding splines in the first place !

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[Peter Delaney]

The plot thickens ! The attached pic shows the general assembly with a cork gasket as the primary dust seal, a "chamfered ring" to compress the gasket - pushed in the the outer screw-on dust cover.

With this setup, there seems to be no way to adjust the overall throw of the spline movement.

 

[Peter Delaney]

In these pics, you can see how the ends of the splines have been digging into the cork gasket - effectively providing an end-stop (chewing up the gasket, pushing bits of it out under the chamfered ring, & distorting the ring).

As there is almost no adjustment left to bring the uprights further inboard, so all in all, it simply looks like the drive shafts are too short, so 2 possible solutions :

a) thicker spacers

b) lengthen drive shafts & re-balance

I am inclined towards (b) as (a) will very slightly increase the already severe downwards angle of the shaft, & I have already had to machine a little out of the inboard flanges to get clearance for the uni housings on full drop-down.

My, this is fun !

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[Darrell]

drive shafts

Hi Peter, hang the expense feed the cat another goldfish, and buy some CV shaft adaptors ( Flatchat) and fit a pair of commodore shafts.

Darrell
DRB#46

 

[Steve Kulper]

While your at it Peter stick a chevy in it!

Steve

 

[Steve Kulper]

While your at it Peter stick a chevy in it

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

Just machine some of that spline off and you'll be good to go --no worries
The CV option only requires a pair of billet machined drive spindles from GT40 Australia and a pair of VT / VS Holden shafts
Your existing drive spindle (yokes) could be modified also

 

[Peter Delaney]

Hi Chris - thanks for that (& why didn't I think of it ?) !

That will definitely work - all I need is maybe another 1/4" extension & it will be sweet. I can't see how losing that little bit would affect the strength of the spline joint over-much, particularly as I don't give the car anywhere near a hard time.

Thanks again !

Kind Regards,

Peter D.