Single Piece Driveshaft

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Ogden Dan

Ogden Dan

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I'm not sure why some of you, who are smarter than Ford engineers, haven't gone and and done single piece driveshafts already.
this is getting to be a shit or get off the pot conversation.
do it or don't.
Part of the problem is my drive shaft guy indicated that due to the length of the drive shaft it would have to be pretty beefy in order to avoid hitting resonance frequency of the drive shaft at normal driving speeds. There may be a clearance issue with the drive shaft in the area where the center carrier bearing used to be with the two-piece shaft.
I personally don't have the time or desire to experiment around with figuring out maximum suspension flex and what the resulting clearance would be.
But it would certainly be awesome information to know.

Dan
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P. A. Schilke

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Part of the problem is my drive shaft guy indicated that due to the length of the drive shaft it would have to be pretty beefy in order to avoid hitting resonance frequency of the drive shaft at normal driving speeds. There may be a clearance issue with the drive shaft in the area where the center carrier bearing used to be with the two-piece shaft.
I personally don't have the time or desire to experiment around with figuring out maximum suspension flex and what the resulting clearance would be.
But it would certainly be awesome information to know.

Dan
Hi Dan,

You are spot on in your assessment. The driveshaft critical speed is a function of length, material and thickness. A carbon fiber shaft of large diameter might work, but clearance to the center bearing crossmember might be a problem.

We faced this with the Ranger Edge in the 2002 and results of testing showed that the 4x2 powertrain in a 4X4 chassis was going to allow the driveshaft to hit the number 4 crossmember, which I knew when the Marketing folks wanted to do the Ranger Edge. Ranger Edge was position to be a cheap 4x2 that looked like a 4x4.

So my engineer on this program removed the rear shocks and drove the 4x2 powertrain Ranger over our test track, claying up the #4 crossmember...Result was we had to retool the crossmember to provide clearance.

Edge turned into a PITA for me, but to this day...I go to my local shopping center and I see an old Edge...Makes me smile as the Edge also piloted the step bar.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 

blackcat5RS

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Guys this is an easy issue to resolve if someone could put the truck on a dyno or lift and just record using iPhone slow motion a video of their driveshaft I can post process the data in my DragonVision software to analyze imbalance, phase, misalignment and more. I don’t have access to either but perhaps someone does?
 
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Guys this is an easy issue to resolve if someone could put the truck on a dyno or lift and just record using iPhone slow motion a video of their driveshaft I can post process the data in my DragonVision software to analyze imbalance, phase, misalignment and more. I don’t have access to either but perhaps someone does?
Don't have an iPhone but my Samsung will record in super slow mo. How long of a video do you need, just a certain amount of frames?

Dan
 

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Don't have an iPhone but my Samsung will record in super slow mo. How long of a video do you need, just a certain amount of frames?

Dan
Dan...Samsung super slow motion is fine I need about 10-30 seconds at steady speed and the frame rate which I believe is 960fps then I’ll load it into my software and do the phase, critical resonant speed, imbalance, and alignment analysis that can be shown to Ford to prove our assertions.

@Phil at Ford Retired this would be invaluable data to your design teams as it is a combination of Modal and ODS analysis.
Refer to:

 


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Dan...Samsung super slow motion is fine I need about 10-30 seconds at steady speed and the frame rate which I believe is 960fps then I’ll load it into my software and do the phase, critical resonant speed, imbalance, and alignment analysis that can be shown to Ford to prove our assertions.

@Phil at Ford Retired this would be invaluable data to your design teams as it is a combination of Modal and ODS analysis.
Refer to:

According to my phone........

"The standard Slow-motion mode allows you to record all sections of a video at 240 fps. ... The Super Slow-mo mode, on the other hand, lets you record approximately 0.4 seconds of video at 960 frames per second with 12 seconds of playback."

So it appears my phone only does .4 seconds at 960 fps. You need 10 to 30 seconds at 960 FPS?

Dan
 

blackcat5RS

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According to my phone........

"The standard Slow-motion mode allows you to record all sections of a video at 240 fps. ... The Super Slow-mo mode, on the other hand, lets you record approximately 0.4 seconds of video at 960 frames per second with 12 seconds of playback."

So it appears my phone only does .4 seconds at 960 fps. You need 10 to 30 seconds at 960 FPS?

Dan
Dan no 240FPS is fine normal slow mo will work since the fmax we are looking at is lower than that
 
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Dan no 240FPS is fine normal slow mo will work since the fmax we are looking at is lower than that
Ok cool. Let me work on this and see if I can get something to you.

Thanks,
Dan
 
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Well I have been working this same issue on my truck since for was not interested in helping. A long and exhaustive path to say the least. After all other solutions failed to solve the higher speed vibration I machined some hub centric
 

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Andrew,

Would you be willing to share the dimensions that you used to machine the hub centric rings?
 

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Would this not be covered under warranty? As a potential new buyer I would hate to have a constant vibration at speed. My current Ranger already has this issue.
 
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Hi Dan,

Yep...that was a problem with the Ford Ranger Edge. I knew it when the idea was proposed to give folks a Ranger that had the stance of a 4x4 but was only a 4x2. The 4x4 frame was torsion bar front suspension and the No. 4 crossmember was use to hang the transfer case. The drafting analysis was the 4x2 driveshaft would impact the crossmember, so I told my engineer I assigned to the program to put a 4x2 powertrain in a 4x4 Ranger. Then we clayed the No 4 crossmember and drilled the rear shocks to drain the oil out of the shocks We did this over night. Then the next morning the engineer headed to the test track to see if he could get stikethrougn of the driveshaft to the crossmember. I required he check out a helmet before the testing, just in case. Using the Dearborn Proving Grounds road surfaces, he returned, white as a sheet from the testing. The undamped rear suspension was quite a ride. The clay impact showed the worse case was a ÂĽ" clearance...Not to Ford specs, so I presented this data and there was a design change in the crossmember flange to increase to the Ford spec for clearance between a rotating member and a static component and thus the Ranger Edge was born....

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
Hello i am trying to get a one peice driveshaft made for my 4x2 ranger would you happen to know the length of the driveshaft
 

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Hello i am trying to get a one peice driveshaft made for my 4x2 ranger would you happen to know the length of the driveshaft
Hi Max,

Your best bet is to find out what specs the driveshaft maker requires...on single piece shafts, we used what is called the A dimension, Center of shaft front U joint to the center of the rear U joint, which you can do with help of another person and a tape measure for example. Since Ranger's have been out and about for almost 3 years, the drive shaft maker should have this data already but maybe not...

Best,
Phil
 

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At what speed is the vibration being experienced?

I recently drove down to San Diego from Wyoming. Once south of El Cajon Pass traffic speed picked up considerably. I'm talking the about the FLOW of traffic. It was pushing 80-85 with many faster. At those speeds and while in the express lane there were constantly vehicles faster than that.

As I pushed 80 and a little over is when I noticed significant vibration. Below that, nothing noticeable.
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