Funny thing is i thought i had checked it all. (You know what happened to thought) If the guy that sold me the bits or the manufacturer had a statment in the box "torque tube modification required" i would simply have done it and i would be racing on saturday night. Now $400 for all new parts to change the thing that i changed only for the sake of changing it errrrrr. Thanks DMI i,m now the owner of MPD again!

Well, welcome to the school of hard knocks, to assume, is to err, and you are correct, a simple slip of paper, with just those few words on it, would have kept another loyal customer. Good luck, if it happens again, ck the snout on the rear, it could be bent, or out of alignment. Bob

Wow, this was a fascinating post. I learned a lot from this post.

I have friend in the central valley,Ca and until last year he ran a lot of winged sprint cars. Last year he had four brand new sprint cars sitting in his garage. Two 410's and two 360's with motors ready to go sitting on stands. I was amazed to say the very least. He asked me if I wanted to see his brand new toterhome. I said "no". I know he was baffled why I didn't want to see his brand new toy. I hate looking at things I will never own. It kind of makes you sick to your stomach, so I bypassed the opportunity, if given the chance...lol!

I did happen to notice he had about 10 yokes (?)/"u" joint assemblies, sitting on a shelf. They all looked used. I questioned him about it. He said he replaced the assemblies after ever 10 races.

You guys talked about aluminum "U" joints. Not knowing anything about sprint cars, I got to figure that is the most craziest thing you could own. I can think of a lot of thinkgs made of billet aluminum, but a "U" joints, never. I don't understand it. It don't make sense to me, but then again I don't know anything about sprint cars...lol!

But I will tell you this. If I ran a billet aluminum "U" joint, it would be replaced on a regular basis, religiously.


Sincerely,

And best of luck to Dennis I have watched him a few times from the stands. Definitely a hard charger.

Larry "O" and best to wishes to all and be safe!

LarryO, the "cross", u-joint, or whatever you prefer to call it, is still an automotive product, the "yoke", which is what he had been replacing, is either steel or aluminum, not the actual "joint, cross", the movable part that connects the yoke to the driveshaft. Bob

Bob,

Question for you. In general is steel 4 times as strong as aluminum?

So if you replace a steel yoke with and aluminum piece of the exact same size you have just lessened your strength by 75%.

After doing some thinking about this subject, The answer is steel is the better choice. Since everybody has a million dollars to put in a midget, go with Billet steel, since it seems money is no object when putting money in a race car. Machine the billet steel yoke to as small as you want it. The billet will be stronger than billet aluminum and will at least be smaller in diameter for less inertia or energy it takes to turn the yoke, during acceleration. It seems acceleration is what people want, so make a yoke out of billet steel and keep the diameter as small as you can, like the journals on a SBC, Honda crankshaft journals?

Wasn't try to steel this post and thanks for correcting me on the misunderstandings of this post and the "U" joint in a Yoke assembly ? I was trying to learn something at other people expense. Sorry for that!

Yeah, I think an aluminum yoke is way less stronger than any steel piece you can buy.

Sincerely,

Larry Otani and God bless you all!

Larry, I think it's about 6 of 1, and a half dozen of the other, I've run both, and it's usually something else takes them out, before they wear out. I'm assuming the aluminum ones are made out of T7, which is pretty close in strength to steel, in this application, I've seen some pretty ragged looking one's of both materials. Yes, you can machine the steel one's down and get them light, but not as light as the T7, and by then, the strength is gone. I've actually turned the T7 one's down, quite a bit, to get clearance in the tube, and they've held up OK, like I said, something else usually gets them first. Bob

I had the same problem when they 1st came out years ago.The od. is too big. I called DMI and got the old "we never heard of that before".... Call winters they make a billet alluminum u-joint assembly for a midget.Iv'e had the same one in for 2 yrs with no problems. It's the same part number as the sprint u-joint but add -M after the number. Steve Buckwalter

Steve, I have an internal coupler, lower shaft, that is ONE piece, but no one will admit to making it. Winters didn't even bother to reply to my question about it, it eliminates the leak up the torque tube, I'd like to find another one, but can't find out who, or why they only made one, the tooling marks look just like Winters, but they deny it. Bob