This thing is going to end up in the newpapers down in NS.

I can see it comming. Its that wide, you won't be able to miss it.

Jason

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fierogt28

88 GT, Loaded, 5-speed.
88 GT, 5-speed. Beechwood interior, All original.

Well, it's been a while since my last update but not because I haven't been busy. I left off with me leaving a set of Cobalt SS axles and a set of long Fiero axles at a local machine shop for some re-splining. It's a one-man shop and it being spring and all, he's been very busy trying to stay ahead of the racing season rush. Needless to say my axles weren't on the top of the priority list, but that's OK... I had (and still have) lots of time.

If you recall, I used the Cobalt SS axle assemblies as a measuring stick to determine how long my chopped down Fiero axles needed to be. The trouble was that once the measurements were taken with the CV joints on, no one was able to take the CV joints off of the Cobalt axles. I needed to get them off to get a precise measurement of the length of the Cobalt axle rod. The snap ring for the CV joints is hidden so the joint has to be pulled off. I tried with my tools, a transmission shop tried, and a machine shop all tried unsuccessfully to remove the CV joints. Ultimately, the only way was to cut up the bearing cages so that the balls could be popped out one by one until the spider assembly finally pulled out:



Here's a close up of the chopped up cages:



I still plan on using the Cobalt CV joint cups since they're new, but now I'll have to substitute the cage, balls, and spider from some Fiero CV joints I have lying around. Here's what the Cobalt axles rods look like minus the CV joints:



I've tried to remove the spider assemblies from the axle rods using my 12 ton press and even resorted to a 5 lb mall but they still won't come off. Clearly the snap ring grooves were cut too square... these were made not to come apart so anyone thinking they might use the Cobalt axles for some other purpose might want to think twice about getting the ones from NAPA:



Now comes the fun part. The machine shop measured up the Cobalt axles, added 60 mm and transferred that measurement to one of the long Fiero axle rods, cut it, and loaded the axle into a special jig on his lathe:



I don't know what the actual name of the jig is (axle indexing jig?), but it holds the axle stationary in the lathe while one spline is being cut, then allows you to rotate the axle in any number of steps to cut whatever number of splines you need 360 degrees around. He tried in vain to explain how it gets set up and zeroed but I was lost after about the first 5 minutes. So here's a better angle that shows how the jig holds the axle while the mill in the background cuts one tooth:



And here's a view from the other end of the lathe showing how the lathe only just holds the axle while the milling head does it's job.



The machine shop owner said that the Fiero axles were made of high quality, very hard steel. His carbide cutter had to be run three times through each spline to remove enough material, and he needed two bits per axle since the material would dull the cutting edge. Here's a close up of the cutter bit in action:



I figured I'd walk out with two axles in my hand when I left the shop but Murphy's Law reared it's ugly head on the second axle. Before loading it into the indexing jig, he gave it a quick whirl on a roller jig to test how straight the axle rod was. My second one was slightly bent and of course would wobble like a weeble in the lathe making it impossible to cut the splines at precise depths. No problem, I thought to myself... I'll just pop by the junk yard and get an axle out of any old '80's vintage GM car. That's when I discovered that there isn't anything older than mid 2000's in the local yards. No biggie, I'll just order a new one from NAPA, right? Wrong. There isn't a single reman or new long Fiero axle in Canada that I could find, and of all the parts stores I called only NAPA could get one from the States from Cardone for a whopping $265 plus 15% tax. Guys... hang on to your long axles... they may be nearly extinct. So on to Plan B.

[This message has been edited by Bloozberry (edited 04-21-2014).]

Thanks Danyel and Joe for the offers on the axles. This is a great virtual community! And thanks for clearing up the name of the jig Will.

Plan B was to go back to the junk yard and find any axle that was large enough in diameter and long enough to be cut down and re-splined at both ends. The most promising axle was the passenger side one from a '96 to '07 Dodge Caravan, Grand Caravan, & Plymouth Voyager. It measured 1.055" in diameter and was plenty long.



Even better, and much to my surprise, when I removed the CV and tripot joints from it, the Caravan axle rod had 32 splines at both ends just like the Fiero axle rod. I tested a Fiero CV joint spider and it slid right onto the end like it was made for it, with the exception that the snap ring groove wasn't in the right place. Edit: The snap ring groove IS in the right place and is the right size.



At first I thought I'd just get a new snap ring groove machined into it so that the Fiero CV joint spider would properly lock onto it, but then I realized that wasn't going to be necessary. It turns out that the Caravan cage, balls, and spider will fit inside the Cobalt CV cup also. So rather than machine a new groove into the Caravan axle, I'll just use the Caravan CV joint innards in the Cobalt CV joint cup.
Edit: The caravan innards are too big to fit inside the Cobalt CV joint cup. The balls are 0.030" larger in diameter. That just means I'm back to using the Fiero CV Joint spider for both axles.

So now I'm back to only having to machine new splines into one end of the axle rod to match the Cobalt tripot spider (as I did with the other axle). I'll drop it off on Monday and hope he's still got the jig set up for me... it's been a month waiting for these!

[This message has been edited by Bloozberry (edited 04-20-2014).]