Spline Shaft Revisited Again (22-36)

For those who haven't followed my progress, I am seeking to take up the rotational slack in the transmission spline shaft, that between the shaft and the transmission connection (hub).
One illustration, below, shows the gaps.
I was able to find a good used hub, but not a new spline shaft.
Another image shows the severe wear in the splines.
After consulting with a dental technician friend of mine and using my dentist background, we came up with a plan.
We are going to make custom shims to fit the gaps.
After lubricating the shaft male and female parts with a light grease, patterns were made by pumping in methyl methacrylate powder-liquid mix into each area. A roughed wire was used to support the acrylic and form a handle for removal and manipulation.
This acrylic is used to make patterns for dental inlays and crowns.
The acrylic sets up in about 15 minutes.
These patterns will be invested in a dental refractory material that withstands high heat.
Then, using the lost wax process, the acrylic will be burned out of the molds and a casting made.
The metal we will use will be a chrome-cobalt or nickel chromium alloy. This alloy is extremely hard and tough.
This should serve as a good repair.
The castings will be either Loctited to place with 604 (for press fit) or not.
In any event, the washer at the end of the spline shaft will prevent the shims from coming out.
This will possibly we the first tractor to have a dentistry connection.
And, my tractor will be speaking Japanese, as I am replacing the clutch pilot bearing with a Japanese bearing (Onyo, I believe)to replace the New Departure bearing.
After all, it is INTERNATIONAL Harvester Company.
Tom

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Interesting. let us know how it works out. Yes, good shafts are hard to come by. We have the same trouble with F20 and Farmall Regular.

Nobody even mentioned that as a possible fix :lol:

you have found the part that is the hardest to fix. those external splines are a piece of cake now. just need to build them up and put it on a lath and milling machine and have it fixed like new. i am sure that should be only like 200.00 or less. i am just saying this because by the time you fool around with molds and pouring metal and getting the shafts to fit to one another i am sure its faster to fix it properly. but hey your the doctor.

I had a new shaft made for about $225.00 in a local shop and the old machinist had three more come in within a week and he refunded me $50 because he said I should have to pay for his learning curve. He also made it out of hardened machine steel. Thinks it will out live the rest of the tractor. LarryT

rustred and LarryT,

I had a quote from a local machine shop for about 600 dollars. I thought that was quite high.
I think that's mainly why I am trying to find another means to take care of the problem.

Thanks for your input.

Larry,

Are you saying that the machinist made the WHOLE shaft for 225 dollars? That's incredibly cheap. Was a broach used to cut the splines? Wow...where did you have that done?

Tom

I didn't watch so I don't know. But it fit perfect. In Albuquerque, New Mexico

Why dont you use the Loctite stuff made for such wear.

Gene,

I figured there could be no Loctite strong enough to counter the tremendous torque that would be imparted to the transmission connection.
Which Loctite product, specifically, do you know of?

Thanks,
Tom

(quoted from post at 23:36:27 03/01/11) I didn't watch so I don't know. But it fit perfect. In Albuquerque, New Mexico

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The same exact shaft that Tom is dealing with? Go there and get one made. I'm sure he would send you $200 for your trouble!

Beautiful!! Dentists often use high technology materials. Finding one that cares about interesting challenges is harder. Great method. Go for it. Jim

Tom i dont know who in Ia City to contac but they do have stuff for what you need. Yrs ago worked with some stuff at Sheller two-part mix did a super job as we found out later when we needed to remove it.

Well, at the going rate for dental work, that's about an $18,000.00 shaft job. Maybe knock off $500.00 for no Novocaine, unless you have a very wimpy tractor.

Great work, though! Keep us posted.