Axle Snapped in Half

[badluck]

Not for nothing, But compared to the doo's and poo's 5-6000 miles on it sounds pretty good to me. I came to yamaha from ski-doo and a $100.00 shaft is alot cheaper than a $2700.00 doo engine! Just my 2 cents

 

[Crewchief47]

kipe1

Please take the time to fill out your location in your profile, site rules.

Thanks!

 

[snoman]

will the titanium axle fit on apex's made by mountain performance ?

 

[mdkuni]

Picked the sled up tonight. Here are pictures of the axle. I only had the main shaft so there are no pictures of where the shaft broke on the chain case side. My bearing was also replaced. It was not shot but you could start to hear noise from it and that is enough for me to want it changed.

 

[Reimond]

My quess is that when you are running your track too tight you have this kind of problems

 

[mdkuni]

My quess is that when you are running your track too tight you have this kind of problems

Not the case with me. My track was run a turn or two tighter once it rachets, with the exception of this year for 700 miles or so I started running it just above the max recommended spec. So she was not too tight by any means.

 

[rx1pat]

mdkuni,

I see you live in Houghton Lake. Did Hackers do the repair? They do great work. If they did the repair, what did they was the cause of the failure?

 

[mdkuni]

mdkuni,

I see you live in Houghton Lake. Did Hackers do the repair? They do great work. If they did the repair, what did they was the cause of the failure?

Yes Hacker's did the repair. Hands down one of the best Yamaha dealers. I would not take my toys anywhere else. Top notch!

It is speculation, but one idea was the sled may have been under load and the axle got locked up in a mogul or some object preventing the shaft from spinning and then releasing...

Who knows. I know I have the Apex back and she loves to run the lake wide open

I just hope I do not have to go through this again. The drive axle is now on my list for routine inspection though...

 

[ReX]

It is speculation, but one idea was the sled may have been under load and the axle got locked up in a mogul or some object preventing the shaft from spinning and then releasing...

Who knows. I know I have the Apex back and she loves to run the lake wide open

I just hope I do not have to go through this again. The drive axle is now on my list for routine inspection though...

Looking at the pictures of your axle, this is a fatigue failure. There is no way a sudden lockup or jammed object could have caused the actual problem. Basically the stresses are high enough that over the miles a crack slowly forms and then at some point the shaft fails catastrophically.

The instant before it failed the loads would have suddenly become higher than average, but the reason it failed was because it was cracked most of the way through already.

If the entire failure was caused by a sudden impact or sudden load, the shaft would have bent a lot first before snapping (likely it wouldn't have snapped either - just bent).

I wish we could be sure the new one won't fail, but one of the guys I ride with has now gone through two and in general we seem to be seeing them fail at between 6000 and 10,000 miles.

Unless Yamaha has improved the strength of the new shaft by changing the design (material, heat treat, etc.), I suspect if you rode as hard for as many miles again there's a good chance you'd see another failure.

I think Skidoo and Polaris have the right idea by going with a huge diameter, hollow drive shaft. These are both lighter and should be much stronger (as long as they don't get hit and collapsed). Once again, I've never seen a broken drive axle on a Skidoo or Polaris (not quite true, I know a guy who bent a drive axle on his Polaris when he hit something very hard; no failures though).

Personally I'm starting to wonder if this is one of those things that should be routinely changed every 5000 or so miles if you're an aggressive rider on an Apex.

As far as inspection, 2 of the shafts I've seen fail failed under the chaincase side sprocket. Another one of them failed inside the chaincase bearing. Either way it would be difficult to inspect without removing the shaft and sprockets and then having it magnafluxed or x-rayed. Might be more practical just to change the shaft with a new one at that point.

 

[mdkuni]

At $93 a piece that is one expensive maintenance item! On the other hand getting home from 110 miles away is more expensive and time consuming.

So you do not think any cracks or rust spots would be visible on the outside of the shaft before failure?

How are the drive sprockets removed from the shaft and reinstalled (aligned)?

I wish there was a way to atleast limp back if these fail4. With a suspension failure you can get lucky with duct tape and zip ties, but I am not sure there is anything you could possibly do to get back.

 

[ReX]

At $93 a piece that is one expensive maintenance item! On the other hand getting home from 110 miles away is more expensive and time consuming.

So you do not think any cracks or rust spots would be visible on the outside of the shaft before failure?

How are the drive sprockets removed from the shaft and reinstalled (aligned)?

I wish there was a way to atleast limp back if these fail4. With a suspension failure you can get lucky with duct tape and zip ties, but I am not sure there is anything you could possibly do to get back.

I guess there are a few ways to look at this.

We spend $10-15,000 on a 4-stroke sled and most of us hope to get 20,000-30,000 miles out of it before either a total overhaul or a replacement (or sell/trade it in before then for an "upgrade").

At $93 every 5000 miles, that works out to an extra $279 by the 20,000 mile mark. Compared to the original purchase this isn't that much.

On the other hand we could argue that they shouldn't be failing in the first place and when it fails get it covered under warranty. I can see this argument, but I hate the idea of having no brakes at a critical time and/or being stranded possibly 1000's of miles from home?

Another "maintenance" item I currently do on all my sleds is replace the chain and upper sprocket every 6000 miles (10,000kms). Again, the same logic applies and in this case the parts cost more than the drive axle. Yamaha's probably have better, more durable chaincases (due to the extra bearing keeping the upper sprocket aligned with the chain), but in my experience I used to snap chains on my previous 150+ hp sleds shortly after 8000 miles (even changing the oil every 2000 miles) so I've continued the practice of changing them before they go with my Yamahas. A failed chain has left me screaming towards a tree lined corner in the past and I can tell you it is no fun (although I've always managed to make it around the corner and to a safe stop - so far). With the chain it always took out the chaincase and upper and lower gears also so it actually paid to change the chain early.

Here's another one - the left side driveshaft bearing. The guys I ride with and I have been changing it every 5000 km (3000 miles) and before each season. Again we don't wait for it to fail and spin on the drive shaft (although maybe that's why one of my previous driveshafts didn't break - it was changed after this bearing damaged it).

To remove the sprockets you need a physically large press. Its easy to do once the shaft is out, but you need the tool to make it easy. I'm not sure how many times the sprockets can handle being re-n-re'd though.

When the shafts have gone on the Apex's (last time on a sledding vacation 1000's of miles from home), we towed them out (100's of miles) to the closest Yamaha dealer (with another Apex or RX-1), but one issue is no brakes on downhill slopes (not to mention no brakes in an emergency). In the past we've swapped sleds around and used the "tow" sled at the back for braking down very big hills (although we found a broken sled with no brakes is very hard to keep going slowly on steep hills - even with 2 "brake sleds" tied together). We've also tried the "go as fast as needed downhill to keep the rope tight" technique. Scary, but it worked for medium sized hills. Another option is to tie the skis of the broken sled together tight and to the bumper of the tow sled. I figured this might damage the skis or steering under hard breaking so we didn't try it.

The more I think about this, the more I think the safe/practical idea of just throwing in a new drive axle on a regular basis makes sense (if an aggressive rider is riding an Apex). I guess another solution might be to buy a new sled that doesn't have a weak driveshaft and that has the brake rotor directly on the driveshaft...

 

[impactindustries]

axle

Had 3 srx's and all three broke axles. One at 130 miles away from home base. I feel your pain.

 

[ReX]

Re: axle

Had 3 srx's and all three broke axles. One at 130 miles away from home base. I feel your pain.

I didn't realize Yamaha sled's had this issue before heavy, torquey 4-strokes.

Why on earth doesn't Yamaha fix these weaknesses, at least for new models? How did Yamaha get the reputation of having such reliable sleds in the first place? Has it always been that just the engines are tough, yet pivot arms and driveshafts have been breaking over and over when ridden aggressively (with the top of the line high performance Yamahas; not to mention exhaust donuts & idler wheels)?

Has anyone ever broken a driveshaft on a competator's sled? I know I've never broken one in 100's of 1000's of km of Skidoo and Polaris riding.

I still consider Yamaha's 4-stroke sleds awesome machines, but when there are known critical weaknesses like these they really should improve on them over the years - even if the failures are occuring after most warranties are over. The driveshaft in particular should be considered a safety issue.

 

[sniperviper]

Mdkuni Is the sled stock or have you adde rail extensions?

Had 3 srx's and all three broke axles. One at 130 miles away from home base. I feel your pain.

Was this srx's extended?

 

[mdkuni]

4,000+ miles on 05 RX-1 1000
11,000+ miles on a 98 Vmax 600
6,500+ miles on a 02 Viper 700
5,500+ miles on a 00 Venture 500


= 0 broken drive axles.