Sport/Liquifire Driveshaft

[guitardude081]

Pulled the track and driveshaft out of my latest find. It's an '82 Sportfire with the rubber track. I can't seem to remember what the end of the driveshaft is supposed to look like. There's a really small taper turned into the PTO end of this one and the bearing only grabs the shaft by 1/2" or so. I don't recall that shaft being tapered on the PTO end. It's going into a 340 Trailfire so I may be safe in this case. It obviously worked with a 500cc fan Cat motor until a burned y-pipe, no air box with Sportfire jetting, a non-existent PTO crank seal and the Arctic Cat logo cooked it. Can someone take a pic of the PTO end of an 80's LF driveshaft? Mine is a Deere shaft or at least the drivers are Deere.

~Jack

[Jimmy]

The right side should be splined where the drive gear for the chain drive goes on, the left side should not be tapered, this happens when the shaft turns inside the bearing, wearing the shaft so it looks like a taper. Should be a snug fit on a 1 inch bearing. See this alot on the ones I tear down. I have put the shaft in a lathe and turned it down to 7/8 of an inch up to the drive sprocket. Then I install a locking collar on it so this doesn't do this again.

[JDT]

Typical.
Some guys goes to all the work to mod or customize a sled and overlook the basics.

Bearings and seals should have been #1 on his to do list.

Jimmy I have seen some tapered down so far that there was not enough material left to make it 7/8".

[guitardude081]

I figured it was worn. I normally see the bearing being torn in half too. Never seen a perfect 5/8" taper before. I always get the driveshafts where it takes 10lbs of tannerite to get the old bearing off the PTO side. I'll have to weld this up and have someone turn it back down.