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Post by BeatUpRupp on Aug 26, 2014 17:36:31 GMT -6
So I finally got around to trying to finish up my skid conversion and though I should freshen up the '90 polaris SKS 133" skid I picked up. Had to replace a few bearings and grease fittings as I expected. What I didn't expect was the torque arm to have BOTH mounting and pivot shafts siezed in there solid. PB blaster, a sledge hammer, heat and finally the press were all unable to remove the shafts. Apparently the previous owner doesn't know what a grease gun is ... Now I have a used torque arm on the way.
My real questions is this. The stock shafts are made of 2024-T531 aluminum. I have 6061 rods sitting here doing nothing so it would be simple to turn new shafts and avoid the $$ of buying them. I know the 2024 is aprox 30% harder than 6061 but for my purposes do you really thing it will be a problem?
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Post by mrmotors on Aug 26, 2014 21:56:07 GMT -6
6061 is heat treatable as one option. The other would be to have them hard anodized as a protection and to make it tougher, kinda case hardens it so to speak. I'm making new shafts for the F/A out of 2024 and going to have a bunch of it hard anodized as well. Most of the aluminum in these things is mush, don't know what the composition of a lot of these components is, but it acts almost like 5052-0 condition.
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Post by BeatUpRupp on Aug 27, 2014 7:19:18 GMT -6
I never thought about anodizing. There is a shop near me that does that kind of work so I will have to give them a call. Heat treating might be an option too. Although the old lady might get upset to find my shafts in the oven
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Post by BeatUpRupp on Aug 27, 2014 15:17:28 GMT -6
The shop quoted me $100 to hard anodize 2 shafts. That's WAY too expensive! Apparently they only do big orders with a minimum order being $100. Looks like I'll attempt some DIY heat treating or just run them as plain 6061. If that doesn't work out then I'll buy the correct material and turn new shafts again.
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Post by mrmotors on Aug 27, 2014 20:53:31 GMT -6
I looked on the McMaster-Carr website and a 1" 3 foot long piece of 2024 is $45.47, a 6 foot long piece is $78.39. I got my stuff from Fry Steel, don't recall the exact pricing but McMaster isn't out of line. Unfortunately, a lot of those places do have a minimum charge, some of them charge by weight with a minimum.
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Post by BeatUpRupp on Aug 28, 2014 7:16:04 GMT -6
I checked out Grainger and McMaster-Carr too. Their prices weren't bad. An Ebay seller Industrial Metal Supply, if I recall correctly has a site of their own with a little better prices. I'll likely end up going that direction. For now I made the shafts from 6061 just so I can continue to mock things up and make sure my conversion is going to work out ok. My worry with the 6061 isn't so much that it will wear faster, but doing some reading on the polaris boards it is far more likely to bend on me. One way or another I'll get it figured out. Thanks for the advice!
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