New Shock Shaft Design?
 

I was wondering if this has been tried or thought of before:
Putting a hex at the very top of the shaft to speed up and simplify building them.
I personaly hate screwing on the cups and dread rebuilds because of this.
Even with a tap screw, its still a pain since everything is coated in oil making it even more difficult to get a hold of the shaft. And if you make a mistake, you scratch the shaft. I even tried those Tamiya non scratch pliers. They suck, save your money.
I included a picture to illustrate what I mean.
So whats up?, Animaniacs Style:
"Good Idea, Bad Idea?"

i think losi have done this on the jrxs shocks

No, I think what Losi did was tap the end of the shaft so the pistons are held on by a button head screw instead of E-clips. But you can put the screw in and use it to thread in the ball end on the shaft like scooby's idea. Both are good ideas though.

Yokomo had a similar design on their shocks when they released the YZ870C Dogfighter (1989).

The piston end of the shaft was threaded, so the piston was held in place by a small nut. Better still, the other end of the shock shaft (the spring retainer end) had no thread - the alloy spring retainer simply pushed on and was held in place by a grub screw going through the side of the spring retainer.

With this design the shocks were always exactly the same length :nod:

I just thought it was simple to do and have many benefits.
It doesn't take much to get leverage and screw on the cups.
Even a 1mm hex would do the trick.
Maybe HPI or Tamiya could start the trend.

scooby...It's a great idea, but manufacturing cost would be much higher. Would be a great aftermarket product from a manufacture :sneaky:

Gee, I wonder who could do that kind of machining. ;) :sneaky:

Integy makes a nice set of shock shaft pliers number INTC22353 I have these and they work really well... there around 20.00

are you thinking who i'm thinking of? :lol: ;)

OK, i'm lost. Fill me in.
P Dub:
Definitely an aftermarket part. I know manufacturers wouldn't want to do it for free. But hey, I would gladly pay extra for these. I know many people would.

I can't see how manufacturing these things would be THAT much more involved. After all, putting a hex at the end of it would pretty much make it a precision screw! :spidey:

It's not a matter of how hard, but how many extra steps ;) Each extra step = $$$

i can only see 1 extra step.

instead of threading the outside of the shaft..simply drill a hole (doing this instead of the thread on outside of the shaft) and then thread that hole......then include a screw with the kit.

i don't see how drilling a hole can be expensive :lol:

The area where the hex part meets the round shaft would become a stress riser and the shaft would snap there is the shaft is hardened or bend there if it is not.

It is a great idea but the shock shaft is so highly stressed in crashes that this would not be a practical thing to do.

adrian...sign on aol :sneaky: