lees02ws6

I had the half shafts powder coated, and one of them sounds like it's filled with coffee grounds. Is it possible the card board liner inside burned up?

JrRifleCoach

Yes.

Or they're filled with cocaine......

lees02ws6

We'll its not white, so I'm going with the latter. The next question is would this be detrimental - having the liner in that condition?

JrRifleCoach

No problem

lees02ws6

Ok good, so since it'll still function, and it doesn't contain any money making white substances, in order quite it down I think i'll use some spray adhesive to stop the noise.

I'll buy some 3M with the straw on the nozzle stick it in the whole on the end of the shaft and apply liberally. Hopefully that'll stop the rattling. It doesn't seem like all of the cardboard burned, only enough to be annoying.

383vett

What am I missing? The halfshafts are aluminum tubes with caps welded onto the end. What cardboard liner?

lees02ws6

Here's a busted one, you can see the card board in it



Probably used to tame vibration

sailorsteve

Any possibility of affecting balance?

lees02ws6

The half shafts aren't balanced to begin with, they're short enough to not need it.

leesvet

One word...


Expanding Foam Sealant...

light weight, keeps expanding until solid and fills the void, and sets like stone yet remains light...like styrofoam.


Works great in tail pipes as well...

lees02ws6

That's three words , and it's great idea. The spray glue did seem to work, however if it loosens up i'll do the foam sealant.

Dr.Huxtable

Ok wow that's cool. Never knew there was cardboard in there

lees02ws6

LOL, I don't know how cool it is. Turned out to be a bit of pain for me. The powder coat looks good though. I got them chrome powder coated.

JrRifleCoach

IMHO your taking this too far.
You are never going to hear the dust and drilling a hole is not going to help your drive shafts.
Leave well enough alone and move on.....

leesvet

why not just polish them shafts? I'd have done that for around 75 to $ 100 a pair.

lees02ws6

I did. Polished aluminum is a PITA to keep up.

This is what they looked like



And this is what they looked like after a little bit of driving

lees02ws6

I don't have to drill a hole in them, conveniently enough GM provided the holes...

Look right in between the "CD" and "01" dead center on the end caps on both sides.

lees02ws6

They don't have the shine of the polished aluminum, or real chrome, but they won't be a pain to keep clean, nor will they suffer from hydrogen embrittlement problems of real chrome.

Calderone

Those are beautiful , how did you polish them ?

lees02ws6

I sanded them by hand, it was a pain. I started with 80 grit, then 120, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, then a white polishing compound on a wheel.

I would never do it again. Like I said, they didn't stay nice looking. That's why I had them powder coated.

They started out looking like this:



Here are a couple more pics of them polished.