heavy85 Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Hint - it's the ONLY thing I had to farm out Cameron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patzky1 Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Driveshaft? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heavy85 Posted September 1, 2008 Author Share Posted September 1, 2008 ding ding ding - we have a winner. I used the stock Camaro driveshaft and had it shortened to fit. Since the motor is stock LS1 and the car is light (gutted 240Z) and I dont do high rev dragstrip style launches it should have lasted. I finally got a passenger seat installed since my dad and brother visited this weekend. Plan was to let my brother co-drove an autox with me. So took it out to give my brother a spin Saturday afternoon. Got about a block away and punched it. It went wahhhhhhhh tink plunk plunk plunk plunk. Luckily we were only a block away and were going uphill so were able to push it back home. My brother got a one block ride and my dad got nothing. We tried to find a local shop open but no luck. Hoped it was just a half shaft since I have spares but no dice it was the main driveshaft. Broke right next to the half ass weld. As you can see the weld is a MASSIVE tig weld and I think they put in way too much heat. Either way it should not have broken there if built properly and I dont think should have broken at all in this application. So now I'm shopping for a new driveshaft. Needless to say I will not be going back there! The exhaust is tucked up pretty tight in there so it kept the driveshaft from going nuts. Only signs of damage I can find is a small mark on the exhaust tubes. The tunnel, e-brake brakets, etc are all perfect and you cant even see bare metal in there. I'm lucky it happened so close to home since I dont own a truck or trailer. Last time I drove it was to the dragstrip about 2 hours away. I only ran three runs because I got a good ET and thought I would take it easy on her. I'm really glad I didn't run anymore as I'm pretty sure it would have broken at the strip 2 hours away. Cameron EDIT - it really sucks you cant rely on other people. This is literally the only part I farmed out and see where that got me. I wonder how those who dont work on their own cars get by. No I'm not bitter at all!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilC Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 I have been hanging DS problems since the day my car has been running. First the shop bent the DS buy applying to much heat when they were welding it up cause the car the vibrate like hell over 50 mph. Then I took it back and they "fix" it then I had it on the car for about 2 hours and bam!.....a weight falls off that was welded on. Now I am have another shop fix the DS and waiting to see how that turns out. 1 TUFF Z used them so it should go well. Get your DS fix and get her back on the road! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoNkEyT88 Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Aluminum welds are not as strong as the base material. That's the reason why the weld is so big.. It looks pretty, but you can see that it looks like he was only letting the weld wash into the drive shaft, and penetrating mostly the yoke. I would take it there, show him the yoke, and see if you can get your money back. Anyone can clearly see that it was not welded correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heavy85 Posted September 2, 2008 Author Share Posted September 2, 2008 With all the welding that's been done on the yoke I wonder if I can just have it machined off and a new aluminum tube installed instead of a whole new shaft? I'm going to call PST and The Driveshaft Shop tomorrow for quotes on a shaft from someone who hopefully knows what they are doing. By the way whe factory weld on the other end of the tube is less than half as wide and is MIG. Cameron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted September 2, 2008 Share Posted September 2, 2008 Still running the DS that John's Cars built for my conversion 4 years and 30,000 miles ago. Solid as a rock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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