Broke another drive axle

fourbarrel

fourbarrel

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Joined
May 5, 2003
Messages
2,765
Location
St George,New Brunswick,Canada
Well this is 2 axles in 2 season on 2 sleds. Last year it was '98 and now yesterday the one on my '01 snapped in half. Finding a used replacement is easy,I'm just wondering if there is any of the newer sleds that have the same size axle with the same bearing and drive chain setup. Or am I going to have to use on from a proaction chassis non Viper sled? Are there any years that might be considered stronger than others?

This shaft snapped for no apparent reason,there were no obstacles is the trail to hit,the trail was flat and packed and we weren't even going terribly fast.
 

2001 up had the stronger axle. snapped a chain on my 97 and took axle out with it. upgraded to newer after that.
 
Well I gave everything a better look after work today and the chain teeth are buggered up,so one more thing to add to the parts list. It scarred up the outer chaincase cover too but I still have the original off my '98 after I put the reverse on it so I can slap that on there and save myself a little coin. Also notice the clutch side axle bearing was feeling a little dry/ rough too,I figured on replacing it anyway while I had it out but that bearing was only going on its 3rd season.
 
i twisted my drive axle right behind the bottom gear it twisted about a quarter inch and still didn't snap thank god i noticed it !
 
The two shafts are broke so clean I don't think I could've done it on purpose if I tried.And they're both broke in the exact same spot.My 98 one,the axle without cogs,broke last year with me riding the sled and now the one on my 01 this past Saturday with my son riding it.He doesn't ride the sled aggressively at all,I think he's still a little intimidated by it yet.Just before it broke I stopped to adjust my balaclava and he come up behind me and stopped,I took off again and he was right behind me,he made it about 100 yards or so and that's when he said he noticed the grinding and thumping and the sled wouldn't move.

The trails were flat and fast but we weren't pushing it,there wasn't any unexpected bumps or hits that I can recall.None that would've been sever enough to do this at least.I don't know what to say,I'm picking up a used SX-R shaft from an 01 either tomorrow night or Wednesday night and will put it back together and try her again.
 
things happen in 3`s you know..maybe pick up another on top of that one...lol..Can`t believe it would break clean like that.You would think it would twist itself and be uneven.Lucky it didn`t break at a high speed,things would of been flopping on the chaincase side of it.......taking a lot with it..
 
The way you can tell if you have the updated axle is on the speedo end. The updated one has a chamfer, the older one has a notch machined on the end. This is going from the bearing surface to the end face. Kinda tough to explain. I can post pics if wanted.
 
I have both broken axles in my shed,I'll have to look at the bearing ends of them and see if I can spot the difference in them.The shaft I used to fix my '01 was out of a V Max,like a '98 or '99 single headlight.I would rather have gotten a new one for an '01 or even a used one from a sled with the updated/stronger shaft,but this one was given to me for nothing,all I had to do was put my cogs on it.
 
Where I work we look at many failures in steel components. With this situation, axles breaking in the same location and a "clean" break, the failures are most likely fatigue failures. The reason this happens is the axle is failing where it "sees" the highest stress during use. The stress is not high enough to permanently bend or break the axle, but the stress in the location of failure is high enough for a fatigue crack to initiate. It may take many, many cycles for a crack to start, but eventually it will. Because the axle is bending during use, a crack located on one side of the axle opens and closes with each revolution. The opening of the crack creates more stress at the crack tip and causes the crack to grow in size. This type of crack growth tends to be very flat and have a much cleaner appearance than a failure due to gross overload. Eventually the crack grows large enough that the remaining material cannot handle the loads from use and the shaft fails. It sounds like the designers realized they had a problem and changed the design to lower the stress in the area that was failing.
 
Track too tight. When the srx came out people where running track tight according to the specs and breaking axle. I think it had to do with the skid transferring also.
I have the stock axle in my prostock with a tight track and never a issue. Food for thought.
 
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