Half and Drive Shaft Restoration

[Greg G.]

I have been working on restoring Half and Drive Shafts and would like you opinion.

Hopefully, you can see the detail on the pics. They are not turned, have the color from being welded, and the extrusion marks.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=whlbgg7.12ryqnon&Uy=x8k44z&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

[Patrick H.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft Restoration

Greg,

Nice!

Now tell us how you did it!

Patrick

[Patrick H.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft Restoration

Greg,

Nice!

Now tell us how you did it!

Patrick

[Gary B.]

Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

Greg,

I believe there was a longitudinal seam weld along the length of the half shafts and the drive shafts used for C2 cars. I cut my original, very rusty '66 driveshaft in half and the seam weld was very apparent by looking on the tube ID, which was still in pristine condition. I don't know when DOM seamless tubing started to be used, but it wasn't used for these applications in the 1960's. A few years ago I had a drive shaft made up from scratch for my '66 and it took the driveshaft shop some effort to locate it, but they were able to track down correct tubing with the longitudinal weld.

Gary
NCRS Northern California Chapter

[Gary B.]

Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

Greg,

I believe there was a longitudinal seam weld along the length of the half shafts and the drive shafts used for C2 cars. I cut my original, very rusty '66 driveshaft in half and the seam weld was very apparent by looking on the tube ID, which was still in pristine condition. I don't know when DOM seamless tubing started to be used, but it wasn't used for these applications in the 1960's. A few years ago I had a drive shaft made up from scratch for my '66 and it took the driveshaft shop some effort to locate it, but they were able to track down correct tubing with the longitudinal weld.

Gary
NCRS Northern California Chapter

[Greg G.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

These are original tubes that have been restored and not made. I haven't seen the weld you are talking about. They should be extruded so, I do not think there would be a weld.

Anyone else have info on this?

Thanks,

Greg

[Greg G.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

These are original tubes that have been restored and not made. I haven't seen the weld you are talking about. They should be extruded so, I do not think there would be a weld.

Anyone else have info on this?

Thanks,

Greg

[Chuck S.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

I don't know about C1s or C2s, but C3s definitely had a longitudinal seam, indicating that welded tubing was used. Welded tubing was slightly cheaper than seamless tubing, and would easily meet the strength specification.

One concern I would have about actually using heat to replicate the HAZ is you may change the strength of the welds. If you're getting it hot enough to make the blue marks, you are probably getting it hot enough to stress relieve the welds. That may be a benign result, but without fully understanding the process, or a metallurgist assuring me it was OK, I would probably pass on it.

I'm just being picky here, but to me there seems to be more irregular soot on the edges than typical tubing welds. I seem to remember very little soot, if any, on the edges; maybe a thin, straight uniform edge of black on the HAZ. This is not a criticism, just an observation...after all, the originals almost surely had to be machine welded, but I'm only guessing here.

[Chuck S.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

I don't know about C1s or C2s, but C3s definitely had a longitudinal seam, indicating that welded tubing was used. Welded tubing was slightly cheaper than seamless tubing, and would easily meet the strength specification.

One concern I would have about actually using heat to replicate the HAZ is you may change the strength of the welds. If you're getting it hot enough to make the blue marks, you are probably getting it hot enough to stress relieve the welds. That may be a benign result, but without fully understanding the process, or a metallurgist assuring me it was OK, I would probably pass on it.

I'm just being picky here, but to me there seems to be more irregular soot on the edges than typical tubing welds. I seem to remember very little soot, if any, on the edges; maybe a thin, straight uniform edge of black on the HAZ. This is not a criticism, just an observation...after all, the originals almost surely had to be machine welded, but I'm only guessing here.

[Patrick H.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

Yes, there should be a weld. However, as big block/HD suspension cars had their half shafts shot peened, that gets rid of most evidence of the weld on those cars. On a small block car it's usually not that tough to find, in comparison. I don't recall which you have.

Patrick

[Patrick H.]

Re: Half and Drive Shaft; longitudinal seam weld

Yes, there should be a weld. However, as big block/HD suspension cars had their half shafts shot peened, that gets rid of most evidence of the weld on those cars. On a small block car it's usually not that tough to find, in comparison. I don't recall which you have.

Patrick

[Gary B.]

Shot peening

Patrick,

I agree with you completely that shot peening, or even bead blasting will remove traces of the longitiudinal seam weld. I know this from experimenting on half shafts. So, I agree that any shot peened half shafts would not show the longitudinal seam well, but all non-shot peened halfshafts and all drive shafts should show the longitudinal weld.

Gary
NCRS Northern California Chapter.

[Gary B.]

Shot peening

Patrick,

I agree with you completely that shot peening, or even bead blasting will remove traces of the longitiudinal seam weld. I know this from experimenting on half shafts. So, I agree that any shot peened half shafts would not show the longitudinal seam well, but all non-shot peened halfshafts and all drive shafts should show the longitudinal weld.

Gary
NCRS Northern California Chapter.

[Wayne M.]

'64 SB and '65 BB shot-peened half shafts

Greg -- on the right is a Jan '64 half shaft (removed in 1968) These were coated with something black (you can see the runs where it was thicker; the rusty spots are where it did not cover the new shaft, or was a thin application). The heat affected zone (HAZ) discoloration, both at the yoke and the longitudinal seam, is much less than on yours.

On the left is a shot-peened BB shaft; no evidence of HAZ discoloration, and no evidence of longitudinal seam; probably all obliterated by the surface treatment.

[Wayne M.]

'64 SB and '65 BB shot-peened half shafts

Greg -- on the right is a Jan '64 half shaft (removed in 1968) These were coated with something black (you can see the runs where it was thicker; the rusty spots are where it did not cover the new shaft, or was a thin application). The heat affected zone (HAZ) discoloration, both at the yoke and the longitudinal seam, is much less than on yours.

On the left is a shot-peened BB shaft; no evidence of HAZ discoloration, and no evidence of longitudinal seam; probably all obliterated by the surface treatment.