recommended material help

[davidh]

i am going to try to replace a "cross" & 4 needle bearings in my ariens snow blower. its non- greasing universal joint assembly and quite special as far as i can tell. quick connect spline female yoke on one end, 3/4 x 7/8 shaft welded into the other yoke.

the dealer wants $300 plus for the little rascal but my feelings are if it has been made, it can be replaced. one of the "pins" of the cross is driven thru the body of the cross, the other "pin" is part of the body of the cross. certainly appears to be hardened something. any ideas from you wizzards of machine work ? please ?

[tdmidget]

Sounds like a cheap ass agricultural joint to me. A farm implement dealer probably has it in stock, probably better than OE. You will need cup measurements and length of the cross to match it up, or just take out and take it to them.

[Tinkerer]

A picture worth a thousand word... can you post one.

[gda]

Ariens ids notorious for making mom0standard parts, but for their universals they are typically neapco, that you can get form Napa.

Post a picture - I may have one left over from my machine.

[davidh]

pix of cut apart joint

the cross is the ugly square hunk. between the ears of the yokes is 1.0625. i looked at the web site of neapco. all theirs seem to be held together with clips or so. this one was held centered with the press fit needle caps. . .
a round of material might be suitable but i would just as soon find one somewhere. . . . thanks for looking.

[tdmidget]

Is it my imagination or do those yoke have sleeve where the cup presses in? Regardless, nothing says you can't sleeve 'em and press in the caps from a new joint.
What the other joint? How does it look? If this one is this bad then the other must have had a hard life too.

[dalee100]

Hi,

If the piece is hardened, it shouldn't be anything too special. I would think anything from a plain medium carbon like 1050 to 4140 would work. I would think the hardness might be best in the 47 to 52Rc range to preserve toughness as well as adding wear resistance.

Since it looks to be all press fit for the pins and then retained by press fit bearings, it shouldn't be too difficult to remake if to have a mill.

dalee

[Willy]

As the others have said, go to a good agriculture or power transmission store. Talk to a knowledgeable sales person. I would be very surprised if it's not readily available.
There are literally thousands of applications for small u-joints like this, someone can sell you a replacement for a whole lot less than $300!
At the very worst you can certainly adapt one, you've got a lot of room to work in before you get anywhere close to that figure.

Just for yuks I had a look at Ebay, is it anything like this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ARIENS-GRAVELY-D...item2c5aec4e11

[wmmcnett]

I know this is old but I was wondering if/how you repaired it, found the correct universals, bought the Ariens assembly, ........
I seen Weasler has some small ones. .59 cap x 1.50 across and .75 cap x 1.91 across.
I'm sure mine will need replaced someday so I'm searching for a source.