Gareth J
Forum Supporter
- Messages
- 3,887
- Location
- North Cornwall
Another thought.
Cut the axle in the middle of your accessibility between wheel and body.
Buy some heavy walled tube with 3/4" bore.
Like this (but somewhere with it in stock)
Fit as long a bit of pipe over the join as you can, without loosing welding accessibility.
Weld the shaft to the ends of the pipe.
I think, with good tolerance pipe and a bit of luck, you'd end up with something concentric enough to get away with.
Edit;
One big drawback with this idea is that you bias the flexibility of the axle to the (now, relatively) thinner bits of it. So you risk fatiguing and cracking the welds or shaft. It's a particularly high risk as the mower suspension is only those shafts and the squash of the tyres. And by widening the track, you're giving the system more leverage to stress the joint too.
Adding pillow block bearings outboard of the joins as you suggested before will reduce the risk of stressing the join but make an already stiff ride moreso and make alignment more critical.
Cut the axle in the middle of your accessibility between wheel and body.
Buy some heavy walled tube with 3/4" bore.
Like this (but somewhere with it in stock)
Pardon our interruption...
ebay.us
Fit as long a bit of pipe over the join as you can, without loosing welding accessibility.
Weld the shaft to the ends of the pipe.
I think, with good tolerance pipe and a bit of luck, you'd end up with something concentric enough to get away with.
Edit;
One big drawback with this idea is that you bias the flexibility of the axle to the (now, relatively) thinner bits of it. So you risk fatiguing and cracking the welds or shaft. It's a particularly high risk as the mower suspension is only those shafts and the squash of the tyres. And by widening the track, you're giving the system more leverage to stress the joint too.
Adding pillow block bearings outboard of the joins as you suggested before will reduce the risk of stressing the join but make an already stiff ride moreso and make alignment more critical.
Last edited:
