> All of which makes me wonder - what is the root cause? I cleaned the diff
> guts
> in gasoline. There is no obvious damage, other than some scoring inside
> the
> cage bearing hub on the side of the broken halfshaft. But the bearings
> move (a
> little stiffly, with no lube) and the ball bearings inside don't look
> damaged.
> What could have caused the halfshaft to twist itself in two? Just fatigue?
Bud,
That is the typical tale of the broken halfshaft. They were not very well
built, especially the ones that came in Bugeyes. The ones built after they
discontinued the Sprite tend to be a significant improvement (musta bin all
the extra cash they had on hand when they didn't have to pay royalties to
the Donald any more ;-). I have heard that a good machinist can clean up the
taper where the splines hit the rest of the shaft and spread out the stress
over a greater length of the shaft, too.
David Lieb
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