why do people change their pinion angles when they upgrade their axles? for universal joints to do their job, output angle has to be the same as input angle otherwise you get angular velocity fluctuations in the drive train, and subsequently high failure rates. yet i don't think i've ever seen an upgraded off-road that /doesn't/ have mis-matched angles. is there a reason?
I think a lot of those custom driveshafts use CV joints at the xfer case end, so in that case you'd want the U-joint angle at the axle to be close to zero.
nate
ok - if that's the case, then indeed, the tilted axle would make sense. but why have a u-joint at one end and cv at the other? two cv's would be better. except that they're not good at high loads, especially not at higher angles, so it would not make much sense having it at the transfer case end...
That I don't know, but I think the basic reason for using CV's is that if you used a conventional driveshaft with U-joints, the angle at each U-joint would be more than the U-joint could handle. Why not use CV's at both ends, I don't know. Typically I think they are not CVs like you think of them on a FWD drive axle but more like two U-joints together. I don't pretend to be an expert on this stuff, I just occasionally pick up a magazine in a waiting room and/or pay attention at car shows.
nate
N8N wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@l6g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
Ever seen this Wiki article? Has very cool animation:
Rzeppa CV joints divide the angle between the shafts perfectly, something U-joints can't do.
Right, but those aren't the ones typically used, but the double cardan type. Not sure why that is... the rzeppa type can be pretty robust, obviously, to be used as the outboard joints on FWD vehicles.
nate
they're used as fwd outboards because they're pretty much the only think that can cope with the steering angles without massive angular velocity issues [the inboard and outboard angles don't match so you can't use universals]. other than that, they're usually considered to be "light load" joints.
durability has for the most part been a considerable problem with the rzeppa design - that's why it wasn't used for decades. only when made of the best materials and assembled with superior lubricant can they begin to approach an acceptable durability - something traditional universal joints that can achieve even when made much more cheaply. for something that spends its life at a shallow angle and at high load, there's little to beat the universal.
Nate Nagel wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
So then look at this: There was a link to this one in the CV-joint page.
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