:D Hey Slunnie I think you are onto something!!! Cheap Gun-drilled axles! Now where did I put that curtain rod...Quote:
Originally Posted by Slunnie
Printable View
:D Hey Slunnie I think you are onto something!!! Cheap Gun-drilled axles! Now where did I put that curtain rod...Quote:
Originally Posted by Slunnie
I've got a special lamp drill for the lathe that should do the trick. Can give it a flame tempering with the propane too for some heat treatment. :lol2:Quote:
Originally Posted by isuzurover
B & Q Slunnie we don't have joints as classy as Bunnings:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Slunnie
For those interested in history, it is interesting to note that Land Rover was initially planning to use these for axles:
http://www.bonappetit.com/images/tip...2_v_launch.jpg
After WW2, steel was in short supply, and the French were feeling grateful that the english saved their arses...
However, during testing of the pre-production vehicles, it was found that they absorbed too much oil, meaning that the hub seals never leaked. So, in order to preserve the designed-in rustproofing system, and ensure steady sales of hub seals, they moved on to plan B:
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...09/09/1141.jpg
However, due to complaints about axles breaking (or the local ploughman stealing them for his lunch), Land Rover finally switched to using steel when B&Q opened its doors - as mentioned above.
This coincides with the appearance of the +35 on late SIIAs. This is because the steel Land Rover were using was 35% stronger than the cheese sticks.
http://www.4wdlinks.com.au/albums/al.../aae.sized.jpg
Hope you all enjoyed the history lesson.
:Rolling:
I still think the cheese stick axles would have been more effective than that steel one! :(
thanks for the replys. A heat treatment expert would be handy, I did study metalurgy at rmit but it was a while ago now. From memory a large crystaline structure makes a harder steel, to get this you quench the steel from hot to cold fairly quickly. It will as mentioned be more brittle and fatigue faster if the axle is under torsion pressure and is actually flexing. If you have a more ductile/elastic axle it will cope with torsion stress more to the point where you could have a crank shaft like example where it will never suffer from fatigue. (crank shafts flex on every cycle but on the stress/strain graph the flex is under the elastic deformation point where the metal is effected - ever, theoreticaly giving a crank shaft an infinite life span). In this case it may not have the absolute strength before breaking.
Toughness not hardness is the quality we would be after here. Toughness means it has largish elastic deformation and is still not to ductile where it will plastic deform, again inducing necking and fatigue. Toughness is not all that related to hardness (that was the only thing that got me worried with the heat treater guy, he was only interested in hardness). So assuming we have a quality steel to work with heat treating is very effective and many properties can be given to steel through the process. (if anyone is interested look up youngs modulus) If we have crap steel then it may be hard to improve the axles at all! - nuts.
The main thing I would still need is an accurate idea of what they are made of there is no easy way of finding this out.
F4Phantom,Quote:
Originally Posted by F4Phantom
i am sorry to say this,
but to do what you suggest would be a waste of time and money.
your advisor , although knowledgable in his trade perhaps, is suggesting that a major manufacturer doesn't know how to make an axle.
crap.
the often stated, but not correct, assumption that lr axles are weak, stems mainly from the fact that so many lr's are on the planet and many of those have been modified way over their intended design limits.
a normal lr of any series, is able to give excellent service in standard form.
it's when you modify the vehicle that the problems begin.
if you want to waste your money and help your heat treatment mate get his kids through school, just give him a donation, and save yourself the wasted time lost in pulling your axles out for him to bugger up.
mobs like maxi and now hi-tuff make axles that are far stronger than the original items - they are also larger in diameter and use far better steel than was available to the manufacturer in the days of the earlier series vehicles.
for $80 per axle, it's a waste of money.
he wants to know what the axles are made out of?
huh? he's wanting to heat treat them, why doesnt he find that out, that's his friggin business!
[yep, i am watching the swear filter!!!]
thank christ i didn't see your last post before i posted this.
Yeah you make some sense and I have not broken one yet either! but I have seen them snap all too easily on locked RR's and as I am under consideration for some type of locking device this is one idea. I HATE WASTING MONEY.Quote:
Originally Posted by harry
F4 , I'm afraid I agree with everyone else here, you are wasting you money.:(
Hardening axles makes them rigid , Axles must have elasticity so that when torsional forces areapplied they can twist and when these forces in action are removed they will wind back to original form , however with rigit axles they won't swing back and will most likely snap , if it was that easy to strenghten axles we'll all be doing it and not bother buying upgrade axles like Mccnamurra or hytuff.
Harry, thats correct. But LandRover and other manufacturers do get their engineering wrong, and that was proven in the lowly powered series Rovers where LandRover produced axles that were strong enough from an ultimate strength perspective, but were guaranteed to fail as they were not from a material or section that had sufficient fatigue resistance. The materials in these axles are also built to a price not to a quality, something that can been seen in the finish of the end product and also the strength provided. It seems that every other manufacturer could build an axle that was strong enough but why not Rover. This is the reason the Salisbury was introduced, but then again why would you bring in a differential that is strong enough to reliably run 44" tyres, and swap the axles for 1.10" 10 splines or 1.24" 24splines? Likewise why didn't they run an 8.5" hypoind into the rover housing which has sufficient strength rather than the great anchor which they did. LR were not the engineering genius that you may think they are. There is evidence of such engineering in other places of the vehicles too, such as suspension.
F4Phantom, don't get too bogged down in the engineering properties and terms that you are after. Likewise I also wouldn't bother heat treating stock landrover parts. I think that you'll find that with age and fatgue that they are already fractured and if the axles can be improved with revised heat treatment or will heat treat at all, they still wont generate the strength that they should. Likewise don't get too tied up with the level of twisting before failure as the amount of twisting will also be largely dependant on the length of the axle (ie short side or long side) and this is why the short sides break more often - same material, same design just less length to twist. The other major factor here is the design of the ends at the splines as there are a couple of different and major stress raisers here. Likewise with the grain structure, large grains probably just indicate an annealed state which is actually softer. You'd be looking more so for the level of carbon in the steel and the other alloyed materials to enhance the properties. I also agree that you're more likely to not waste you're money by using axles manufactured from an upgraded metal such as Hytuff, EN25/6, 4140, 4340 etc and heat treated to suit - the manufacturers will know exactly what properties they want and what heat treating specs and process is needed to get it out of those materials.
Edit, re heat treating. There are different types of heat treatment that can be done. Springs are all heat treated, and likewise axles are also. Because you are heat treating it doesn't necessarily mean that the metal will become hard and brittle. We machine centre punches and nail punches like its going out of style. We harden then to a hard and brittle state, and then temper them to remove the brittleness, but maintain the hardness. Axles I don't belive are generally really hard as it results in a brittle failure. All of the broken standard and aftermarket ones that I have seen that have failed have not shown a brittle failure at all.