You are missing something there James, though I take the point you do make too.foggyjames wrote:The problem which Anjo was mentioning is that the steel prop they'll make will obviously be heavier than the standard ally one (hence the interest in a centre bearing for support). I take the point, but am tempted to suggest that it will be ok, given that Iain's (Huskyracer) was fine.
The thing that makes our cars different is where the gearbox is, not just that it's bolted to the boot floor. In almost all applications of a transax, you find they use a torque tube, so lets start there and work out why. Alignment seems to be the obvious one right? Well, no. Not to me really. Torque tubes are big fat and heavy, why didn't all manufacturers use a UJ'd prop from the beginning (I'm thinking Porsche, Corvette, Alfa and 360 here at the mo). It'd be lighter than the torque tube, easier to manufacture and perfectly good for the power.
Well, I'm not sure it would. Ok, the prop shaft would be lighter than a torque tube setup, but the actual rotating mass in a torque tube is naff all. Look at the 360's inside spinning bit and it's about an inch in diameter, same as a 340's clutch shaft but about 6ft long. Same with the other manufacturers.
So why? Well... think about the loadings applied to the syncro mesh during gear changes. You know how much I complain about GLS's having way to big a flywheel to allow a quick gear change and for proper rev matching, more weight in the prop will cause the same problem but more so. You'd take out the synchro's in a matter of 10,000 miles, if that I'd guess and given nearly all the other transax cars are "sports" cars, a slow gear change would make them unsellable.
The 340 prop is amazing at being the lightest thing in the entire world, you can lift them with a little finger. It would have been cheaper for Volvo BV (who were Daf lets remember) who are known for not being able to spend pennies as they were nearly bankrupt for so long, to make a "normal" propshaft out of steel, where the parts existed, rather than learn how to get involved with rubber bonding to ali which again isn't the worlds cheapest metal. There must be a reason why.
Chris' thought, is that if a propshaft upgrade is needed, it pretty much has to be a torque tube, but it's only a theory and I don't want to stop others experimenting and trying things, there is always a way to sorting problems.
just awaiting funds it will probley be after xmas now or if i can get back in work soon as job seekers is crap and rely rely boring even with college
so today yes today i jacked the car up removed the front springs and chucked them to one side and grabbed my proper lowering springs -40mm -two coils that i had on my other volvo, so fitted them jubile clipped them in place so the spring cant dislocate, fitted the boots cable tying them in place. Replace a top mount and sat it back down on the ground. The new springs are slightly softer its rolls now haha so i may look at taking my spare front arb and doubling it up. its got the dreaded MOT tomorrow so hopefully it passes.
