Spline for CV Joints

The Machinist's Handbook will tell you how to measure them. But, you're most likely going to need a professional machine shop to make your part. I don't know about Polaris, but the Japs naturally use metric splines, which have an odd number of splines. As far as I can tell, they are custom-made for each company. NTN makes some of the Yamaha stuff, so you might contact them.

We buy spline shaft and adapters and weld them to our CV cups and wheel hubs. Check out Grobinc.com, also. They might have something you can use.

We run the same halfshafts, and do the same thing. The first time we used them, we were able to EDM splined couplers ourself (Pain in the butt). The second time (last year) we used the stock final gear out of the hawkeye gearbox, which has the splines built in. This year, our machining sponsor who cuts our CVT splined shaft is cutting the halfshaft splines for us as well. I just give him a halfshaft and he figures out what it needs to be.

Also, I have a Solidworks file which is supposed to be the spline in question. I take no responsibility for making it, and can't guarantee it's right. But it should be close. I'll post it in the file depot. Scratch that, couldn't figure out how to upload files there. Here is a link.

http://osubajasae.googlepages.com/CVspline.SLDPRT

I think it's drawn in Soldworks 2006.


Edited by adrive7 - Feb/08/2009 at 12:30pm

Only one side has the ability to travel. The inboard CV does not move. The outboard CV can move maybe an inch, which has been enough for us.

Also, if you haven't dealt with these halfshafts before, don't expect to be able to remove the inboard CV from the shaft.

Adrive,

If the hawkeye shafts are anything like yamaha shafts, you can-ish (this is an important ish that is highlighted later) remove the non-plunging CV from the shaft. 

First, find one of the inner cage bearing slots that is larger than the others.  Rotate the shaft up until you find the critical angle that puts that bearing high enough to be removed (pop it out with a small flat head, being careful not to let it bounce across the shop and under the mill.  Don't force it too much, that inner cage is pretty damn weak).  Then, you have to rotate the shaft around, popping the bearings out in opposites (like torquing wheel nuts).  If you overshoot your rotation, it usually jams up and you'll have a heck of a time getting it back.  Next, you have to rotate the shaft until it will lift straight out, aligning the 2 larger bearing slots in such a way that you will find once a decade.  Remove the inner cage.  It will look like the inner bearing race is married to the shaft through magic, and older shafts will have some play.  In reality, there is a very absurdly strong lock ring inside.  Press the shaft out while supporting the bearing race, and presto-ish, 50% of the time you'll have an intact shaft.  The other 50%, you'll have broken the spline ends off, and the shaft is worthless, but hopefully the bearing race is not busted (10% of the time I'd say it will be).  When re-assembling, it's much, much, much easier to put the bearing together before mating it with the shaft, but if you use a shaft/lockring that is over sized or over tolerance, the inner race may expand, shattering the bearing cage, and reducing your patience to a pile of cinders.

This is a good way to get OEM quality CVs/Spindles on aftermarket shafts, but, it takes about 2 hours per axle to take apart, and another 3-4 hours to properly assemble the new axle (much of that time spent chasing greased ball bearings around), so if you need spares, make them before the race.  It's also pretty consuming, last year I went through about 20 axles to get the 7 used during the season (although at least one of those broken ones had it comin').

adrive7 wrote: I'll post it in the file depot. Scratch that, couldn't figure out how to upload files there.

I've written a short how-to on uploading files to your File Manager.
http://forums.bajasae.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=71&PID=593#593



Edited by JeremyB - Feb/26/2009 at 3:25pm

adrive7 wrote: We run the same halfshafts, and do the same thing. The first time we used them, we were able to EDM splined couplers ourself (Pain in the butt). The second time (last year) we used the stock final gear out of the hawkeye gearbox, which has the splines built in. This year, our machining sponsor who cuts our CVT splined shaft is cutting the halfshaft splines for us as well. I just give him a halfshaft and he figures out what it needs to be.

Does anyone know if the spline dimensions for the Sportsman 300 are the same as on the Sportsman 500 Drive Shafts??

Hey,

You're not going to get 3" of plunge out of the 525 IRS axles.  Maybe 1.5" per side max.  Fix the geometry first.

How did those 525 PRS shafts work for you?  We are thinking about running those this year.  Did you have any reliability issues or anything?

What failed?