Can a shaft drive work?

[Bump]

Hello

I have a friend who wants to sell his 1982 or 83 suzuki gs 850 g for $250. The only problem is it is a shaft drive. Has anyone had any success using a shaft drive on their buggy?

What is involved in shortening the shaft drive and making it into something usable?

Could the engine simply be mounted sideways as a solution?

Thanks

[jumpin jellybean]

are you going to hook it up to a f/n/r box (rpm etc)? if so, yes you chould mount sideways and hook up a sprocket on end of shaft others with more knoweledge will chime in soon

[jumpin jellybean]

oh oh or you can hook it up straight then send 1 long shaft to front diff and short shaft to rear diff for all wheel drive

[nutz4sand]

A rear spool for a typical chain drive can be tough to make for cheap. Most people end up at 200 for a cheap one to $300.00 and much more for a nice one.

A rear punkin out of an IRS car can be gotten for 40 bucks or less at a salavage yard many times. Not hard to mount.

If the length is not an issue. With a short round punkin and a short driveshaft you will not be much longer than chain drive to a spool setup.

[wyattboche]

Originally Posted by nutz4sand

A rear spool for a typical chain drive can be tough to make for cheap. Most people end up at 200 for a cheap one to $300.00 and much more for a nice one.

A rear punkin out of an IRS car can be gotten for 40 bucks or less at a salavage yard many times. Not hard to mount.

If the length is not an issue. With a short round punkin and a short driveshaft you will not be much longer than chain drive to a spool setup.

So nutz. What models(cars) have the IRS? Looking at making a 4x4 mini buggy. Also where can I find a motor that fill fit with a reverse?

[nutz4sand]

Lotsa cars have IRS. Many Datsun's and Nissan's and Toyota's and Subaru's and Audi's and Ford's and Gm's and Dodge's and VW's and nearly all of the others too.

Some are short and some are LONG (Audis the longest I have found so far. Even longer than the Subees!)

Some are kinda light and some are balls of cast iron.

Some are easy to hook flanges to and some take a lot of work.

I do not know of a shaft drive motor with reverse other than the big Honda Goldwing motor.

For a lower power woods buggy a sideways turned raptor type motor with a shaft adaptor off a dwarf car may work but it will add to the length (usually not wanted on a woods car)

There is that one Kawasaki (I think) quad. Its got a big 700 or 800 V twin with shaft drive and reverse AND its got a CVT. They are quite fast in stock form. Might be a canidate. I do not know the quads proper name. Klr or klx maybe? They are bright green with black trim. I think I have also seen a orange one.


best thing for the car IRS is to hit the local Salavge yards.

Ford Merkurs have a neat rear end with German CV flanges BUT they are cast iron and heavy.

Late model Ford Thunder Birds ahve a aluminum IRS thats not to heavy. I have one of those and an Audi diff in my garage. I will see about piccs later this evening.

The audi diff is longer than heck. Its out of the tial end of a Quattro adn some of tehm (not all) like mine have a lever you can lock and unlock to lock the diff or run it open.

Mazda Miatas also a nice tiny IRS diff I have been told but I have not seen one in person yet.

VW 4 motions also are a nice diff.

VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT 4MOTION/AUDI A6 REAR DIFFERENTIAL 45K:eBay Motors (item 330275786427 end time Oct-25-09 17:28:49 PDT)

[nutz4sand]

As for a 4x4 mini buggy a large stripped quad is a good place to start. If yuo really wanna hop the power up then a drivetrain out of a small 4x4 might be needed (like athe front end out of a Geo tracker 4x4. Or two front ends even. Both facing the same direction with a shaft feeding them via chain perhaps?

Like mini buggy reverse. Theres not a perfect way. Just a lot of ways it CAN be done.

[Shmeefer]

My dad and I were just talking about this last night. Can you use the "diff" out of the bike? I can't really recall what it looks like, but the bike has a mechanical means for turning the shaft output into a rotary output 90 degrees to the input.

[Bump]

Originally Posted by Shmeefer

My dad and I were just talking about this last night. Can you use the "diff" out of the bike? I can't really recall what it looks like, but the bike has a mechanical means for turning the shaft output into a rotary output 90 degrees to the input.

My problem is I don't know what the inside looks like where the shaft output rotates directions, so I do not know if it can be used in my buggy. And the owner won't let me take it apart to find out.

Does anyone have experience shortening and using motorcycle shaft drives on their buggies?

Also, with turning the engine sideways, can you remove the shaft drive completely or does the seal around the front of the shaft drive hold in all the transmission fluid?

[nutz4sand]

To clear a couple things up the diff on the bike is not a diff its just a 90 degree gearbox.

Big problem I see with it? (I have looked at them) They only send power out ONE side. So you would have to work some really wonky thing out to get power to the other wheel. You COULD add a sprocket to it and then run a chain back to a spool but that adds a chain (which if we can avoid is great. Especially a short one. Two sprockets to buy. A $$pool $$etup. Not to mention its gonna add a lot of length you may not want.

Be easier and simpler to just go to the scrap/salvage yard and find a small diff you can incorporate and be a lot cheaper too!

Any decent race car or fab shop or driveshaft place can shorten a driveshaft easy OR make you one up that fit the bike motor on one end and the cars diffs U-joint on the other. (Or cv flanges as a lot of car diffs use those for the input too these days.)

As for turning a shaft drive engine sideways. The output of most shaft drives is made to deal with a turning load. Not a heavy side pull like a chain drive is. Some of them might be heavy enough BUT if you overload the cases you can crack them. Either where the shaft comes out of the motor or he motor mounts. It was not designed to be pulled on like that.

Were I to use a shaft drive sideways I would not feel secure putting a big side load on it and I would use a small shaft with a bearing on each end of it and a sprocket in the middle. Then the bearings would see all the side load. Its the only way I would feel comfy with that.

Plus being the motor with a shaft drive is made for a shaft splines it might not fit any sprockets made out there and custom splined sprockets are likely not to be found easy or cheap.

The ideas we are working on are trying to incorporate all the parts from cars we can. A few extra pounds of weight is worth it to me to be able to break a part and snag it at Autozone or Napa. Any custom one off parts I want to be made of my metal in the garage so I can fab up a new one if need be. Thats way we can keep on off hard to get parts (like a sprocket splined to fit a driveshaft) to a minimum.