New Bent Driveshaft?

[augustaf]

Just tried the strait edge method, I’m finding about .80mm of runout at the splines.
That's pretty good, I'd fly with it!
For longer spline life: do change the 2 o rings inside the midshaft. They suffer from accelerated wear when there is too much drive shaft run out...

 

[Roseand]

Credit goes to @Jr. for recommending the straightedge method. Quick and easy way to give you a ballpark!

 

[brapperdoodle]

Just tried the strait edge method, I’m finding about .80mm of runout at the splines.
That's pretty good, I'd fly with it!
For longer spline life: do change the 2 o rings inside the midshaft. They suffer from accelerated wear when there is too much drive shaft run out...

For sure! All the parts on the midshaft and housing are brand new OEM, so I got the o-rings

 

[Proformance1]

Most commodity shafts have a degree of shaft runout. All shaft do. I wont get into all the what, where, when and why, but this is why all Torrent shafts are made of one pc Billet custom alloy stock, not welded, not shortened, etc. straighter and stronger for the long haul. You are checking it properly, most dont

 

[brapperdoodle]

Most commodity shafts have a degree of shaft runout. All shaft do. I wont get into all the what, where, when and why, but this is why all Torrent shafts are made of one pc Billet custom alloy stock, not welded, not shortened, etc. straighter and stronger for the long haul. You are checking it properly, most dont

You saying I should have bought a Torrent Pump?
Starting to think I should have

 

[Proformance1]

Lol you know better. Most of our customers never buy our products the first time, they buy ours the last time!

 

[brapperdoodle]

Lol you know better. Most of our customers never buy our products the first time, they buy ours the last time!

Damn. Got me there

 

[TheBuzzard]

I didn't read all this but with the pump in , you should be able to rotate the shaft without the grate on there while looking at the end of the shaft in the engine compartment. I found mine to have a crooked ass shaft so I threw in another one and it was straight. rickter fr2evo
tricky sold me the wrong shaft and it eventually stripped so I had TNT cut the stripped end off and weld in a new section. it wasn't perfectly straight and did have some wobble in it but I didn't give a hoot and ran it. been running it ever since and noticed nothing. I don't think a little wobble makes any difference. and this is behind my xs1200.
oh, and oem sj shafts are 3 pieces

 

[JetManiac]

I didn't read all this but with the pump in , you should be able to rotate the shaft without the grate on there while looking at the end of the shaft in the engine compartment. I found mine to have a crooked ass shaft so I threw in another one and it was straight. rickter fr2evo
tricky sold me the wrong shaft and it eventually stripped so I had TNT cut the stripped end off and weld in a new section. it wasn't perfectly straight and did have some wobble in it but I didn't give a hoot and ran it. been running it ever since and noticed nothing. I don't think a little wobble makes any difference. and this is behind my xs1200.
oh, and oem sj shafts are 3 pieces

Small correction
OEM 90-07 SJ tapered driveshafts are made from 3 pieces with 2 welds.
OEM 08-20 SJ nontapered driveshafts are made from 2 pieces with 1 weld.

 

[Freakrider]

The expensive lesson I've learned is if your driveshaft has significant runout in it you better be monitoring spline grease washout or you'll risk stripping the shafts regardless of proper alignment.

 

[brapperdoodle]

So I haven’t made a decision on if I’m going to use this or not. Instinct tells me it’s a bad idea. It might work great for a while but I don’t see it working as well as it could. My question is this, why would they make a tool for aligning your driveshaft, if in fact it’s okay to run a driveshaft with this amount of runout? What would be the point of checking the alignment at all other than by eye? There is no way to “split the difference” the deflection will remain the same, you’ll just be moving it from one place to another in relevance to the pump tunnel. I’m just a little confused here because I’m getting 50/50 feedback. I bought all new stuff cause I wanted it to be correct, so figuring this out in the first place is a little frustrating. It’s easy to say, just run it! But I don’t want to be rebuilding my pump every other season. Yes I want to go ride, but I’m also interested in setting things up properly the first time, that’s why I’m putting so much effort into this.

 

[Harbor]

Sorry to come off so directly.. not meaning anything by it...

You obviously feel pretty uncomfortable about the bent shaft. Your only choices are put the wobble on center or replace the shaft. How to put the wobble on center has been explained and was suggested by more than one person.. experience running with wobble been shared by multiple people, so if your still concerned I’d say it’s time for another new shaft..

Torrents is solid so I’d go with his.. either have him install your prop or you be careful not to bend:flex the shaft tightening the prop

With his shaft done right you won’t have any worries of wobble issues

 

[TheBuzzard]

tools are made to make a task easier or just to make the inventor money. the shaft alignment tool clearly aint necessary. this primitive jetski junk aint brain surgery

 

[brapperdoodle]

No offense taken, I need to hear it strait

 

[mikidymac]

tools are made to make a task easier or just to make the inventor money. the shaft alignment tool clearly aint necessary. this primitive jetski junk aint brain surgery

I would go with this.
Do you relaize how many thousands of skis have the shaft alignment "close" and never have a single issue or how long the 20+ year old superjets running around have never been checked. Get it as close as you can in the center of the hole and run it, remember the midshaft is rubber mounted also.

Now if you are running huge engines, big HP and big pumps it might be more critical but for a standard superjet it will be fine.

 

[brapperdoodle]

I would go with this.
Do you relaize how many thousands of skis have the shaft alignment "close" and never hav a single issue or how long the 20+ year old superjets running around have never been checked. Get it as close as you can in the center of the hole and run it, remember the midshaft is rubber mounted also.

Now if you are running huge engines, big HP and big pumps it might be more critical but for a standard superjet it will be fine.

That’s really the perspective I’m looking for. I don’t have any reference to this because it is something that’s still pretty new to me.

Honestly though, I think some of us might have a little bit too much time to overthink things right now ha.

 

[Sanoman]

Holy crap Brappy,put that dam ski together and quit overthinking it!!!!!!

 

[brapperdoodle]

Holy crap Brappy,put that dam ski together and quit overthinking it!!!!!!

 

[brapperdoodle]

Alright I’m gonna run this thing! I’m centering everything up and get it as close as possible.

Just curious, has anyone used shims on the midshaft? The service manual mentions it and I have the shims, should I fool with it or just disregard?

 

[Storbeck]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think way too much emphasis is put on alignment. Watch how much your motor moves even just reving it out of the water, it's going to be way more under actual load. The hull flexes, the motor mounts flex, everything moves. I still try to get my stuff aligned well because it can't hurt anything, but I bet people would be surprised if they knew what stuff does under load. In the world of snowmobiles, where the cvt drive belt requires precise alignment, it's common to set the motor statically OUT if alignment intentionally so that when the motor mounts deform under load it pulls into place.