Bent Cross Shafts

[guitardude081]

As many of you have found, the cross shafts in many models of JD snowmobiles like to bend or bind. Here are a few ways that I have found to get the inner separated from the outer when all hope seems to be lost.
Stuck but not bent:
-Heat from a torch
-Good penatrating oil such as Kroyal or Zep products
-A long bolt threaded into the end of the shaft followed by a lot of hammering and "MFing"
-Thread a good strong bolt in all the way and try to spin the shaft w/ an impact.
Bent:
Depending on how bad the shaft is it may or may not be able to be saved. I have saved a lot of suspension arms and inner shafts by doing this trick:

Soak that sucker in really sticky penatrating oil such as Kroyal or Zep Products. Clean the excess really well to prevent slippage. Find the exact center of the bend and put the top if the bend against the ram of a good shop press (preferably the hydraulic hand pump style for control). Bend the shaft with the shop press until it's straight, apply a generous amount of heat and then bend the shaft just a hair passed the point where it's straight. Overbending will allow for flexback or in otherwords when you let off with the press it will bend back slightly the opposite way you are going. You may have to overbend and heat a few times to get it straight. At this point you will have achieved 2 things: 1. the shaft will be straight enough to disassemble. 2. The penatrater will have heated up and and made the inner shaft real slippery. At this point you may be able to put a bolt in the end of the inner shaft and pound it out, otherwise you can use the press to get the shaft out. Once the 2 pieces are separated, you can fine tune straightness with the press.

Obviously if the shaft is tweaked to the point where the metal is cracking this probably won't work, but in the case of a slight bend, this has saved many a shaft and many a torque arm from hitting the big plastic refuse bin under my workbench.

If you are good with angles, the shop press can be your friend when trying to fix bent handlebars. I was able to save a guy $50 on a new set for his 500 Sportsman by spending 1/2 hour on the shop press with his bars.
~Jack