Anybody snapped their drive shaft lately?

Well I did the other day. I was shifting hard from 1st to 2nd and it felt like I put it in neutral 8O . So I took the rear end apart hoping it wasn't the final drive and this is what I found.... Look's like you can build HP with pods and exhaust : I've never even heard of this happening before. Oh well better get ahold of Len for a replacement.
I'm trying to load the pics so wish me luck
I'm not sure if you can see it in the pic but there's a crack running the hole length that wraps around the shaft?

Seeya,
James

 

I would guess that when Jack Yammaguchi designed the final drive assembly, he wasn't anticipating this kind of torque?

 

I've seen the U-Joint go on a few; but that's the first time I ever saw the Shaft give.

 

Hey James,

If you still need a driveshaft I have some laying around. PM me.

Dave Fox

 

nice work! i see a lot of breakage like that on truck axles in the snow, but thats neat seeing it from a bike. not so much for you of course!

 

never seen a shaft bust myself. and i really don't think the smaller yamahas have that kind of torque to make it happen.

i've burnt rubber on my 82 maxim 650. rated at 62 horses. and that was hard to do. i've also burnt rubber on my 82 V65magna. rated at 115 horses. LOTS OF TIMES. never busted a shaft.

 

a new one on me too. I've seen a bunch of XS's, XV's and a few XJ's (just to name the yams) with busted this and that in the final drive but NEVER a shaft. Congrats, I think.

 

burning rubber doesn't usually break shafts. It's when the tires suddenly hook up that things go snap.

There may have been a flaw in that shaft which then weakened over time.

 

The shaft didn't break from doing burnouts. I did 3 rear tires worth of burnouts last season with out any problems. How it broke..... I was taking off from a friends house and decided to get onit so I pinned the throttle in 1st gear at about 3k when I hit about 9k or 9.5k (its hard to tell because these bikes rev so fast in 1st) I banged 2nd like I have 100s of times before but instead of hookin & bookin it felt like I hit neutral. DDDDAAAMMMIIIT That was 11k of screaming 650 at 1am in a residential area I wasn't planing on 8O . So I coasted on the bike path to a stop and started pushing.
Well that's how it broke :lol: It is a cool looking piece as a paper weight on my desk I think I'll hang it on the wall.

-James

 

Most impressive! Lol, never seen that one before.

 

wow.. just wow...

 

I'v never seen that one either. I have a spliced drive shaft on a XS1100 and have rode it hard but never broke one. Thats one for the record books.

 

i had a wall of shame for cool carnage pices. then my brother and i started racing.....now we have a monthly scrap pile.

 

i did the exact same thing you did a multitude of times. i don't think them yamahas like second gear that much when the motor is wrapped out. i always had that problem.

the shaft looks funny though. one section is a rough break and the other section looks smooth.

i've seen chains pop before.

anyone looked at guiness book of records for a busted drive shaft?

 

The long piece would make a nice truncheon for those rowdy get-togethers......

 

Good eye. The smooth area indicates that the break didn't happen all at once; the smooth area had a crack for long enough that the flexing of the shaft polished it.