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Every year sand enthusiasts need to perform
some preventative maintenance on their sand cars. Part of this routine is
checking the CV joints. Maintaining CV joints is generally the biggest pain
in the butt for the owner of a sand car that is driven hard. Whether they
are breaking or being worn out in a season, servicing or replacing them is a
messy job that no one enjoys! Imagine never having to service a CV again!
Jesse Jaynes, founder of
High Angle Driveline, has been building heavy duty drive shafts for 4x4
trucks for over 20 years. His drive shafts are built to handle extreme
angles and have with-stood some serious off-road abuse on the trail. About
15 years ago Jesse made a set of drive shafts for his off-road car to
replace the CV joints. The drive shafts worked well for Jesse but he didn?t
act on the idea until a couple years ago when he began to hear the 'groans'
of the off-road crowd concerning their weak link, the CV joint. Jesse now
makes High Angle Drive Shafts for sand and off-road race cars.
After a hard season on
Project SCU we
had 2 CV joint failures and the other 2 ready to let go. After a few greasy
hours of servicing CV joints we decided it was time for something better!
Jesse's off-road drive shafts are custom made for each customer. The main
bodies are made from large 3 inch DOM tubing (other companies use 2 inch)
while the splines are custom machined and then heat treated. We opted to
have our splines nickel plated to allow them to plunge easier. Each drive
shaft uses a 1410 series U-joint from a 2000-2007 Ford Superduty truck and
has a grease zerk fitting for periodic maintenance. Each U-joint is fitted
to double welded journals. Over the splines are 2 heavy duty rubber boots to
keep sand out. Inside these boots is another zerk fitting. Jesse recommends
greasing all zerk fittings every 2-3 weekends of use. He also recommends
installing a hoop around the drive lines in case something does happen.
While he is very confident with the durability of his drive lines, there is
always a chance something could happen. Many off-road cars have gas tanks
and batteries mounted near the trailing arms. If something hit either one of
these at high speeds the results could be devastating.
Changing CV joints over to drive shafts seems to be taboo in the off-road
world. Many say they will not plunge properly and cause severe transmission
damage. Jesse's High Angle Drive shafts are a bit different than the
competition. His have the spline/slip area at the bottom of the drive shafts
(near the tire) rather than at the top (transmission side). This allows
grease to stay in the splines during plunging rather than fall into the
shaft housings. Also with the extra large, one piece, nickel plated splines
and proper maintenance Jesse says his drive shafts will hold up better than
a CV joint. CV's max angles are about 25 degree's while the High Angle Drive
lines allow for 36 degrees. This could solve some problems for cars that
have extreme angles.
Each set of drive shafts
comes with pre-drilled bolts that allow easy installation of safety wire to
ensure the bolts never back out. We took it one step further and used a set
of Stage 8's locking fasteners. Stage 8 makes many types of very unique
locking fasteners that eliminate the need for safety wire. We used their
'Abutment System' which is a normal looking 12-point CV bolt. The difference
is once the bolt is installed properly an oblong retainer is installed over
the head. The inside hole of this retainer is also 12-point to match the
bolt which will not allow it to spin on the head of the bolt. The other end
of the retainer sits up against the drive shaft. If the bolt ever came
loose, the retainer would not allow the bolt to spin at all. A C-clip is
installed over the retainer to prevent it from falling off. While the Stage
8 locking bolts cost more money, we thought not having to use safety wire
justified paying the additional money and we also felt the way these bolts
are designed is very ingenious!
Installation
of the High Angle Drive lines can be somewhat tedious. First you must make
sure the bolt threads in the micro-stub axles are perfectly clean! We used
Q-tips soaked in alcohol and took our time making sure they were perfectly
clean. The reason for this is you must get the bolts in more than half way
by hand due to the limited room between the u-joint yoke and the plate that
bolts to the micro-stub axle. If the bolt threads are not clean you will not
be able to screw them in by hand! Once they are in half way you can get a
3/8's box end wrench on them to finish the job.
On our first ride we were skeptical and took it easy at first. After a few
hard turns and small jumps we felt confident the drive shafts were able to
plunge properly and not cause transmission damage. Even with the added
weight of the drive shafts we didn't notice anything different in
performance over traditional CV joints. Our second trip on the drive shafts
was to the Idaho sand dunes where we severely abused the drive shafts to see
just what they could with-stand. Whether slinging the car sideways in a high
speed turn or cresting a steep razor back, the High Angle Drive shafts
worked flawlessly. We are especially looking forward to next summer when
there will be no need to get our hands greasy inspecting CV joints!
High Angle Driveline
7245 Clark Road
Paradise , Ca 95969
530-877-2875 Shop
530-877-2907 Fax
http://highangledriveline.com/
http://www.stage8.com/
64 Louise Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
(800) 843-7836 |
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