salisbury axle

in just in the process of fitting a sailisbury to the rear if any ones done it just want your advise on shorting the prop what i was thinkin of doin was cutting it butting it back up and just seam welding it round said he would do that but plate round it to, i can see were hes coming from for strength but my concern about doin that is it been very un ballanced. any one done this and you experiance please thanks.

stick it on a lathe, machine the end off and refit in to the shortened tube - make sure it lines up exactly the same as before with the UJ's.

had a 4x4 prop shortened earlier this year, 'the propshaft clinic', they did it by post to my measurements.

think it was £55 all-in which included balancing and posting back to me. very tidy job, came back repainted too.

they were helpful & communicative emailers. recommended, and the best value I could find on the net after many emails & phone calls.

So you have already moved the spring supports on the axle inboard to fit a SWB?

thats this weekends job then ill be takeing the prop to the wifes dads as hes a welder better equiped than me with me hobby stuff to use his cut off saw and better welder.

oh and thanks but i aint payin £55 or i dont no any one with a lathe.

in that case yo options are reduced, and yu will have to put up with the end result.

but what i am asking is will it be strong enough just seam welded round the join

tack on 4 straight pieces of steel strip at 90 degrees to the tube fush the end in tack the tube back together hammer off the strips and weld up carefully making sure it doesnt distort with the heat

best you can do mr thinks

I wouldnt trust it - that is why the ends are inserted in the tubes and then welded. But yu dont wanna do that.

Just think of the results if it does break.

TheSmiths88 said:

had a 4x4 prop shortened earlier this year, 'the propshaft clinic', they did it by post to my measurements.

think it was £55 all-in which included balancing and posting back to me. very tidy job, came back repainted too.

they were helpful & communicative emailers. recommended, and the best value I could find on the net after many emails & phone calls.

Click to expand...

wow better start a business lol doing that lol, seems alot easyer than working in tight engine rooms and all nar what am i saying i love it.

to square it back up i was gonna sit in some angle bar, well iv got two props so i could try seam welding then plateing round it and if had any problems with vibrations just seam weld my other and use the first one as a get me home prop.

Why not find some tubing the same size as the inside diameter of the shaft tube. Cut the shaft to the right length, insert a sleeve then weld round the joint. The weld will fuse the sleeve inside to both halves and should be well strong. Much easier than trying to plate round the outside and guarantees it's all straight.

£55 sounds an excellent deal, just for the peace of mind alone.

^ that's what I figured.
But I didn't have a spare one to play with ... if I had I'd probably have had a go myself.

They seem to have machined off the original weld between tube & end fitting, shortened the tube then welded back in the original place.

Actually mickdj - before you weld the new spring supports onto your axle, ie before you set in stone the inclination of your diff, is it safe to assume you know about prop phasing, and the possible importance of keeping the gearbox output shaft parallel with the diff input shaft?

Some folk I know when doing this sort of job would just point the diff up a bit in order to help the UJ's in the prop but this may not necessarily be the best thing to do.

This link explains why, and there's a useful little utility at the bottom that demonstrates the possible scale of the problem if you don't get it right.

Apologies if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs - but there may be other folk reading this that might find the knowledge useful.

Universal Joints

mickdj said:

in just in the process of fitting a sailisbury to the rear if any ones done it just want your advise on shorting the prop what i was thinkin of doin was cutting it butting it back up and just seam welding it round said he would do that but plate round it to, i can see were hes coming from for strength but my concern about doin that is it been very un ballanced. any one done this and you experiance please thanks.

Click to expand...

I did a Salisbury rear axle conversion on my 88" SIIA many years ago. I was skint at the time so I shortened the prop myself following a procedure given in an LRO article and following the advice of a local Land-Rover specialist:

• At the rear end of the prop, the yoke has a cylindrical stub which fits exactly into the shaft and the two are welded together.
• Use a grinder with a cutting disc and cut through the weld towards the axis of the shaft to a depth of about 3mm.
• Knock the yoke off the shaft.
• Shorten the shaft 2"
• slide the stub of the yoke into the shaft leaving a 3mm gap for the weld
• Align the yoke as carefully as possible
• Weld up.
• Cut the spring mountings off the axle
• Mark up the new lateral positions of the spring mountings on the axle tubes
• Put two blocks of wood on a level piece of concrete
• Put the spring mounts ontop of the blocks
• Put the axle ontop of the spring mounts
• Put a jack under the nose of the diff.
• Lift the nose of the diff up 1" from the horizontal position
• Weld the mounts to the axle.

The reason for lifting the nose of the diff up 1" is that the Salisbury diff is 2" longer than the Rover diff and the pinion is below the centre line of the axle due to the hypoid diff. The effect of would be to make the angle of the propshaft steeper, which could cause the propshaft yokes to bind. Lifting the nose of the diff will stop the yokes from binding, but there is a downside to doing that. In theory the input and output shafts connected by a propshaft (ie the output shaft of the gearbox and the diff pinion shaft) should be exactly parallel, otherwise vibration will occur.

As long as your welding is upto scratch this method of prop shortening should be strong as you would be attaching the shaft to the yoke in exactly the same way as done by the factory. I've run the Land-Rover for years like this but it does suffer from quite nasty vibration on over-run. I'm not sure what the problem is caused by. It could be that it's caused by the nose of the diff being lifted up 1" from the vertical, or it could be slight missalignment of the propshaft yoke, or it could be that the prop needs balancing.

I'm planning on doing this conversion to my 200tdi SIII sometime and I'll do things differently this time. I won't tilt the nose of the diff up and I'll get somebody to make up a propsfaft for me with 30 degree wide angle yokes on it.

thanks ill read that be for i start

TheSmiths88, Just curious, but in your photo i cant see a sliding joint on the prop shaft, where is the sliding joint?.