Axle shaft strength & modification quest
 

I've compiled all the outer stub shaft options from tamiya for TLT axles.
The reason I'm talking about the outers as opposed to the inners is that I'm having 3 seperate issues with the outers, the inners just break where they neck down before the ball. The first issue with the outers is that 2 of the options have a long drive cup which limits the steering angle. It's fairly easy to remedy by grinding the cup down. The Blackfoot axle has a cup length of
.410", the TG10's cup is .370" long and TLT shaft cup is at .312". That's almost an 1/8". The second issue is what I call slot wear. Meaning the drive pin slot wears out and makes a ton of play. I've had almost a 1/4 turn of play at the wheel. The third issue is obviously shaft failure.

Note they all are a different color for ease of indentication.

Here's the 3 stock options in order left to right: Blackfoot #58110(adds 1/4" per side), TG10 front #50823, TLT #9804193. http://www.nor-calrcrc.com/albums/al.../acn.sized.jpg

Here you can see the reason I've tried them all and continue to modify them for better performance. All 3 of these are the TLT axles though the TG10 fronts also have the same issue as the 3rd axle below, but have not broken in my experience.
http://www.nor-calrcrc.com/albums/al.../aco.sized.jpg

This picture shows the stock axle next to the modified version of the same axle. The cups have been shortened to help steering angle which matches the TLT axles. The last one is also a TG10 front that has had the cup shortened & heat treated to hopefully increase the hardness so the pin slot doesn't wear out as fast. Not that they wear out fast but faster than I prefer.

Note they all are a different color for ease of indentication.

http://www.nor-calrcrc.com/albums/al.../acp.sized.jpg


I'm thinking about sending some axles off to be cryogenically treated which changes the molecular structure of the metal making it less brittle. I've added a link to some more info about having parts Cryo'd.

Deep freeze


I'll be using Performance Cryogenics click here


If anyone has more info on these shafts or other options please post up. I didn't mention the RCP CVD's because I've heard they have been discontinued, which I hope is not true. They are truely a great option.

Over a 100 people and nothing? huh

Sorry....I run the RCP CVDs on my TLT axled crawlers. I never had any issue with stock dogbones, other than the fact that they didnt give enough steering. Now, I only break pins in the CVDs...

I have a set of CVD's but they are no longer made from what I understand.

One more option, and the one I preferred, though at the moment I can't remember why.

TG-10 rear axle. Longer thread reach maybe?

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXGM26&P=7

Probably. It looks like there is more length outside of the pin than the TG10 Front...

Yeah, I have a hard time remembering what a TLT is sometimes.

For some reason I thought they wouldn't work but now I can't remember why. Oh well.

It wasn't really that long ago, but man have there been a lot of builds since!

Pssst....it's mostly due to the Natty Ice:twisted:

Also there were 2 different tlt stubs, the later rockclimber had stronger stubs that the cups were already shorter(ones you have pictured)while the original kit version were shiny chrome color and had longer cups and were weaker. Not sure if they still offer both versions still.

Very true, but the supposedly stronger ones are the only ones I've ever broke. I believe they changed them not because the outers were weak but because the inners were breaking at the neckdown before the ball end. The late TLT's came with inners beefed up in the that area by half a millimeter which required the use of the shorter cupped outers. They may have heat treated them too much, making them brittle.

You can still buy the parts and make a set of CVD'shttp://rcpcrawlers.com/home.php?cat=17

The best combo of tamyia parts was the later axles with the early outers ground down