Resplined axles

[wierdscience]

I have been approached by several people who what their axles resplined i.e.street rods.I have been sending them to Mossier but they keep bugging me to do it.In all the time I have been a machinist I have never cut an automotive spline other than the hard way using multiple angle settings (slow and sloppy)does anybody have a better way?(other than a jillion dollar spline rolling machine)I was also wondering if the front half of an involute gear cutter could be used to mill the tooth profile.

[This message has been edited by wierdscience (edited 02-20-2003).]

[ibewgypsie]

I got a rotary table, indexer with a 1 1/4 through hole to cut streetrod axles. Ohh yeah cutting the splines... have a good table without a lot of slop or you will have wavy splines. I heard that a horizontal mill works better with a fly cutter, but I used a end mill on my last one. I made a full 360 degree circle before I cut the stub off to confirm my degree per spline. Lowering the mill in each slot to check. I try to case harden them but.. I ruined the first couple by heating them up too much before the oil quenching. That is a whole other art to learn.
On the housing...
Lathe Cut the line up bearing cups to fit a steel shaft of your choice, I got 1 inch stainless. Cut internal cups to mount in ring gear bearing mounts. Push the rod all way through cut axle housing, tap in cups into bearing mounts in end, cut outer housing to fit new axles.
They don't bring squat on ebay, by the way. Locally they are worth a ten-00-bill. I get 9 inch fords car or truck for 100 here. last one was a disc brake one.
Want pictures? I got some somewhere in this machine or the shops puter...

[wierdscience]

Cutting housings is a cake walk I got a jig built for that ,sometimes getting an exact length from a guy is the challenge.The Ford 9"s are $50-100 around here they are not much of a problem but some guys like the Dana 50s and Dana 60s with the full floating axle.The Ford 9" axle After I get the axles back I can cut and reweld put the back brace on and rearrange the spring pads in about 5 hours if I'm in a good mood.I haven't found anything to tell me what exactly those splines are I think they might be the same as an s.a.e.hydraulic spline but I'm not sure.

[ibewgypsie]

29 or 31 I remember.. not too sure about the circumfrence.. Maybe I don't understand your question..
I am relaxing with a beer... ha ha..
is there a set spline design? a ansi normal?.. see you are educating me.. some more please..

[wierdscience]

I'm thinking of the tooth profile is it involute or modular?The counts I get are 28 and 32 but my main problem is what the heck do you call the profile?

[Ironland Spline]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by wierdscience:
I have been approached by several people who what their axles resplined i.e.street rods.I have been sending them to Mossier but they keep bugging me to do it.In all the time I have been a machinist I have never cut an automotive spline other than the hard way using multiple angle settings (slow and sloppy)does anybody have a better way?(other than a jillion dollar spline rolling machine)I was also wondering if the front half of an involute gear cutter could be used to mill the tooth profile.

[This message has been edited by wierdscience (edited 02-20-2003).]</font>

Hey,

We use spline grinding machines to put in axle splines. A spline grinder is like a large capacity surface grinder. We set up axles between headstock (indexer) and tailstock centers on the grinder, and grind the spline form into the axle parallel to the axis one spline at a time. And because we use a basic vitrified wheel, we have the ability to produce an exacting form in any material, regardless of hardness! Most of the axles that we encounter have a hard case of about .100" depth. We normally don't have to grind axles under coolant, because we match the wheel to the material. We can grind spline forms in soft steel or 72 RHC on T-15 (as in the case of broach cutter tools)! With grinders you have that kind of lattitude! For indexing we use a CNC indexer so we can program whatever index we like. The axle form profile is dressed two ways in our shop. If it is an angular profile that is desired we use a simple overhead tangency dresser on the spline grinder. Most of the 28 spline axles we encounter use a simple 45 degree pressure angle which can be dressed as angular or involute. The overhead dresser enables use to dress two angles tangent to a body or root radius. Since the involute form is a radial form, we use a radial dresser mounted on a slide table on the grinder table that enables us to dress two radii tangent to a centerline body or root radius. We can respline any axle without heating it up beyond the ability to touch with your hand. And surface finishes are excellant, as are tolerances with the form grinding process. So is pricing! We can respline a pair of automotive axles typically for under $100.00. The most common axles we do for $90.00 per pair.

Howard
Ironland Spline and Tool

[Thrud]

Howard
That's cheatin' man.

Any arsehole can do it the rightway with the right equipment - but we are part scotish laddie!

[This message has been edited by Thrud (edited 03-04-2004).]

[wierdscience]

Grinding,I thought about that but never tried it,I am doing it though with a 35*diamond insert angle mill,I can do a set in about 45 minutes on the b-port and get about $100.00 for the service,I've done ten sets so far with no problems,the inserts I've been using have a 1/32 radius on the tips and make for a good fit when finished.Thanks for the reply thou.

[Ironland Spline]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Thrud:
Howard
That's cheatin' man.

Any arsehole can do it the rightway with the right equipment - but we are part scotish laddie!

[This message has been edited by Thrud (edited 03-04-2004).]</font>

I know a guy in Florida who resplines axles with a J-Head Bridgeport Mill with dividing head and tailstock. He sets the mill spindle head at 45 degrees and uses a Lovejoy 4 fluted mill cutter armed with spg-431 inserts. He is limited to doing the Ford 28 spline with a 45 degree pressure angle, but he gets 'em done! He says that they are full of chatter, but they work! He want's a spline grinder now!

Howard
Ironland Spline and Tool

[John Stevenson]

Can't help with involute splines but the parallel sided ones can easily be cut with a modified horizontal milling cutter. The formula is in Machinery Handbook.



Ever wondered where they get the axles for those dinky little baggage trucks at the airports? They are just normal automotive axles cut down.
In the UK they use the old Morris 1000 axles as they are still cheap and plentyfull.
The picture above is one of a set that have been cut down and are being resplined, the holding piece is cut off afterwards. When I do these I tend to do about 40 at a time, it all depends on how many they can find in the scrapyards.

John S.