[Spridgets] Broken Halfshaft and Thunkin Punkin

David Lieb dbl at chicagolandmgclub.com
Sat Jul 19 16:29:41 MDT 2008


> All of which makes me wonder - what is the root cause? I cleaned the diff 
> guts
> in gasoline. There is no obvious damage, other than some scoring inside 
> the
> cage bearing hub on the side of the broken halfshaft. But the bearings 
> move (a
> little stiffly, with no lube) and the ball bearings inside don't look 
> damaged.
> What could have caused the halfshaft to twist itself in two? Just fatigue?

Bud,
That is the typical tale of the broken halfshaft. They were not very well 
built, especially the ones that came in Bugeyes. The ones built after they 
discontinued the Sprite tend to be a significant improvement (musta bin all 
the extra cash they had on hand when they didn't have to pay royalties to 
the Donald any more ;-). I have heard that a good machinist can clean up the 
taper where the splines hit the rest of the shaft and spread out the stress 
over a greater length of the shaft, too.
David Lieb 


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