QA-42 Snow Thrower

[glippert]

Well, ok guys - I did say I could be "all wrong", but then what's the story with Charlie's NOS shaft. I stole this pic of it from his websiteView attachment 138317

What's the story? Can't say for certain, but I do know that winters all long and booze is plentiful in northern Minnesota...

(Still crackin' myself up after all these years!)

 

[john.knutson]

What's the story? Can't say for certain, but I do know that winters all long and booze is plentiful in northern Minnesota...

(Still crackin' myself up after all these years!)

you're not wrong! (today is my Friday, so chug a lug)

 

[hydroharry]

Kraig,

The worst that might happen is he might whine...... LOL

Hahahaha
Kraig - you sai

Hydro, if you look close at the photo, the U-joints are not even 90° out, more like 80°. I think John has it correct that it was slid apart then put back without concern for alignment.

Just an FYI for some of the newer members, Hydro and I go way back to the early years of the forum so I felt comfortable being a bit jovial with my reply to him. I wouldn't as likely do that with a new member I don't know as well.

Hydro, View attachment 138335

Hey Kraig - how far back is "way back". The guys on here don't know that Charlie started the clock over. You show as 2006 but we know it was long before that.

And then there's Mike Frade (y-cat): What's the update on your 169 status?

And since I stole this thread I better keep it on topic. Since I moved to Arizona all I can do is look at these pics ever once in awhile. Talk about a nice QA42A.

 

[john.knutson]

Hahahaha
Kraig - you sai


Hey Kraig - how far back is "way back". The guys on here don't know that Charlie started the clock over. You show as 2006 but we know it was long before that.

And then there's Mike Frade (y-cat): What's the update on your 169 status?

And since I stole this thread I better keep it on topic. Since I moved to Arizona all I can do is look at these pics ever once in awhile. Talk about a nice QA42A.
View attachment 138344 View attachment 138345 View attachment 138346

Arizona? Maybe you could move some desert sand around with it

Kidding, I would hate to see and hear the heck that would wreak on the grease and joints!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Hydro, how far back? Oh, about 1998. At that time you corrected me on a post I made trying to help some one with a gear drive Cub Cadet. At the time I had only worked on hydros and gave bad advice and you corrected me. You probably don't even remember it, I do, because I don't like to give wrong info and have tried my best ever since to give the best Cub Cadet advice as I can.

 

[btaner]

Great advice on the u joint alignment. I wrestle that thrower every year and at some point the splines separate and i just put it back together willy nilly like. And quick attach my you know what. I really struggle with that heavy thrower. Brad

 

[mfrade]

Harry - the 169 just sits in the shop. I've lost interest and thought I had it sold but the deal never happened.
I remember one of our first posts too. We were discussing a mower deck and the baffle around the blades.
I had just bought one and had the part number and price in hand.
That was when it was just a blue screen with white letters/text!

 

[sblunier]

Way back is 1998 for me......

 

[rfunk]

After all that, I had to take a look at mine, because I KNOW it was apart in the last couple of years. Didn't run rough, so I was fairly sure I'd gotten it together right.
What happens if you run a u-joint shaft incorrectly? I tried to run my (3 point) chipper on the neighbor's tractor, couldn't get both links to move enough to have slack in the shaft, so tried with just one extended. That meant that the output shaft was not parallel to the input. Couldn't keep a shear pin in it for more than about a minute. WITHOUT LOAD!!! Using a different tractor, stalled the tractor a couple of times, shear pin didn't fail. BIG pile of branches, only about 8 cu. yards chips.
The guys with the wildly lifted 4x4's you see on the side of the road with a driveshaft broken underneath, tried to get away with incorrectly operating u-joint driveshafts. FAIL.
What will you see if you run your blower driveshaft out of phase? Needless wear. $$$ you shouldn't have needed to spend.
My rant for the day.

 

[sblunier]

Vibration is the biggest issue, and the knuckles accelerate at different (un-timed) rates. The more the angle, the worse the vibration. Vibration leads to bearing failure on the cross.

In your PTO application, steeper angles can cause more issues. TYPICALLY, big PTO shafts are triangular cross sections with a flat on one corner, so the joints cannot be misaligned when reassembled....UNLESS, they were repaired incorrectly at some time (welded out of time). Also, if the shaft was fully collapsed (no available telescoping) the drive line would operate very roughly.

Ideally the center of the driveshaft would also be over the center of the pivot point (then in a straight line) to split the drive angles equally on both joints during a turn. This is more important with towed implements like batwings, mower conditioners, balers, etc.