Quick Drive Bolts

[TheBreeze]

What are the thoughts out there on this years QD bolts? It looks like they are a different part number this year, and the upper and lower bolts match.

After missing the best weekend of the season last year, with a broken bolt I am interested in upgrading to ARP again this year.

Who else agrees?

Anyone know the bolt specs, or ARP part numbers for upgraded replacements?

 

[mountainhorse]

AXYS Top & Bottom QuickDrive™ pulley bolts... M10 X 1.25 X 45mm

On the AXYS with QuickDrive™... the Bottom pulley bolts are are 25mm longer than the 2013/14/15's PRO-RIDE chassis with QD (more than double the length).

On the AXYS with QuickDrive™... the Top pulley bolts are are 5mm longer than the 2014/15's PRO-RIDE chassis with QD....And 25mm longer than the 2013 PRO-RIDE chassis with QD bolts.

This change, with the AXYS sleds, to longer bolts... allows more preload on the bolt, which is better all around.
Preload, stretch, bolt length, torque etc... all are factors in clamping force on the inner race to the shaft.. which also would help to keep the pulley square to the shaft... and help to prevent rocking.

A longer bolt will have more elastic stretch (and longer preload extension) than a shorter bolt. Preload is good to keep the pulley snugged up tight to the inner-journal/bearing-shoulder.

Always clean the old locktite from the bolts and the jack/drive shaft threads.


It couldn't hurt to go with a higher quality bolt... the ARP bolts are just that... and a tougher bolt as well... which is something that grade alone will not tell you about. Is it worth the money at about $3.50/bolt... only you can decide....but as I've said... it cant hurt , IMO.

ARP's..... Not to be mistaken with hardware-store/Fastenal 10.9 or 12.9 bolts... they are different in their metallurgy from the ARP. IMO... the ARP's are the best fastener for this application.... but can be argued as overkill easily.

ARP PN. 673-1006
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/arp-673-1006/overview/

 

[TheBreeze]

Your the man Mr. Horse!

Thanks!

If you were to run these, would you use nordlocks like you did on the PRO?

 

[mountainhorse]

I've re-thought the Nordlocks... and would simply go with Locktite on these.. Blue locktite.

.

 

[Indy_500]

Do these need to be full thread to the shoulder of the bolt? I know the pic of the bolt pack is pretty generic never had quick drive sled, will probably take mine out this weekend.

 

[LPIdaho]

Do these need to be full thread to the shoulder of the bolt? I know the pic of the bolt pack is pretty generic never had quick drive sled, will probably take mine out this weekend.

You're going to want them with the shoulder as pictured. Good bit stronger than fully threaded in this application

 

[FriscoProx]

MH, what are you torquing these to? And what tipped the Nordlocks out of favor?

 

[phatty]

Ordered mine. Thanks. These are worthy upgrades and nice to have spares for riding buddies

With MH advice I replaced my 15' sleds bolts with ARP. Never had issues while everyone else snapped bolts.

 

[displacement4me]

For those interested, the same bolt from ARP in stainless is PN 763-1006 (careful, only two numbers switched)

I've also had good customer service from Pro Bolt for misc. stuff on my '85 F-150 with a built 460 and my naked bike.
In titanium: PN TIHX1045FR

 

[mountainhorse]

The stainless and Ti bolts don't have the same "toughness" properties which make the cromo more resistant to cyclic fatigue... according to the engineers at ARP that I spoke with. They also make Ti fasteners, and know their stuff.

.

 

[LPIdaho]

For those interested, the same bolt from ARP in stainless is PN 763-1006 (careful, only two numbers switched)

I've also had good customer service from Pro Bolt for misc. stuff on my '85 F-150 with a built 460 and my naked bike.
In titanium: PN TIHX1045FR

Titanium is probably not a great choice for this application. Ti bolts are only made to a 8.8 equivalent(or less) which is exactly the same grade as the stock bolts being replaced

 

[TheBreeze]

Anyone have the torque specs??

 

[Teth-Air]

I got fully involved on this subject last season and sell quite a few grade 12.9 bolts as a result. I am still convinced that sloppy pulley splines are the cause of most problems. My question is "Did Polaris tighten up tolerances for 2016?" This question is most important as the splines should take the pulling torque and not the bolt.

 

[mountainhorse]

PRELOAD

Teth-Air, It will be interesting to hear what you think about the fit of your AXYS splines on the shaft/pulley.

Heres my opinion, FWIW.

I do agree that the splines have something to do with the issues.... and that working in a mass-produced environment at the factory has something to do with it.
Also, any "tighter" fit... and you may be working for hours just to install a new belt.

In an ideal world...IMO... the splines on the shaft and in the lower pulley would be longer and have a larger machined shoulder on the shaft for the pulley to "register" against.

Polaris did take measures to improve the situation for 2016 by adding longer bolts, more than double the length, that allow for substantial preload to be placed on the bolt (see below)

Although the 12.9 are a harder bolt than the 10.9 grade that is offered... I'm not sure that it's a hardness issue..... as much as a pre-load issue and toughness issue. Also, a grade 12.9

I did help a person last year that broke a few of the lower bolts with his new aftermarket belt drive...which I attribute to more than normal shaft-spline-tolerance issues... I had him machine up a 26mm thick spacer to replace the washer and went with a longer lower ARP bolt (45mm) that would take preload. The problem went away, and has 800 miles on since instal last season. I'll see if he can send me some pics to post up.

I put the "spacer/longer-bolt" idea out there to some machine shops that do sled parts... so we'll see what shakes out for a product offering this year.

On the ProRide chassis... the "tougher" bolts from ARP are not much harder than the 10.9's and are more resistant to cyclic fatigue than the stockers or 12.9-grade. The ARP bolts, IMO, have a much higher Quality Control system behind them, as well as different metallurgy than even the majority of mil-spec or industrial hardware.



Heres a couple of posts from last season on this.

02-21-2015, 01:04 PM
There are many attributes that make a "stronger" bolt.

Hardness, and toughness are SOME of the properties.

I agree... a high grade bolt should not break... and there must be something with the fit of the sprocket on the shaft.

The ARP bolts, I have found, to be tougher and resist more cyclic flex... plus they have some of the best QC in the business... mfg tech is top notch.

Does this fix the cause... nope... do the ARP bolts, IMO, resist the breakage more than the stock bolts... yes (again IMO) .

04-18-2015, 06:58 PM
Excellent points above... and elaborated by Tethair... and also good point on the stretch.

Preload, stretch, bolt length, torque etc... all are factors in clamping force on the inner race to the shaft.. which also would help to keep the pulley square to the shaft... and help to prevent rocking.

If the bearing shoulder of the drive shaft is square to the length of the shaft... and the bearing inner-race journal registry faces are parallel to each other and square to the outer race... and the inner face and outer face of the pulley at the splines are parallel to each other...and the shaft is just a hair shorter than the overall installed height of the bearing and pulley... then you should be able to pull the assembly together with some good preload and resist rocking as much as possible given the design of the assembly.

Yes... as Rick! is eluding to... the longer bolt will have more elastic stretch (and longer preload extension) than a shorter bolt. Preload is good to keep the pulley snugged up tight to the inner-journal/bearing-shoulder.

Good write-up on stretch.
http://arp-bolts.com/p/technical.php#p7TPMc1_3

Ideally... I'd like to see a good stud fastener and washer, 50mm, w/spacer, for the QuickDrive™... maybe a "kit" from ARP (they are always open to stuff that will sell) ... so that the driveshaft threads do not bear the torsional issues of the bolt being installed and torqued... save that factor for a high end, square ground and hardened nut!!

I am a fan of saving $$... I still feel the ARP bolts are superior to any other out there that is easily available to consumers. You get what you pay for... the ARP's are not much harder than the 10.9-grade fastener (stock bolt)... but the metallurgy and process makes them "tougher"

 

[mountainhorse]

Just so that I'm clear... I'm not saying that the stock bolts will have any issues in the 2016's... there is no reason for me to believe that.

Heck... no one has really had their production sleds on the snow... not even the boys that were in Chile with the Axys... those were not part of the consumer production run... so at this point, we really don't know.

I can say, however, that the ARP bolts will have better quality control and engineering to them... and they are affordable... can't hurt IMO.

 

[Reg2view]

So, in Realville, bolt failure on a sled's lower chain drive sprocket was pretty rare, and lots of boosted 4s have proven the basic design, mass produced and around since Jesus was a private, works. It's not space shuttle stuff, the QD design just doesn't tolerate manufacturing variances, or the design needs to be improved (root cause). Ain't just the bolt, poo.

 

[mountainhorse]

OFFSET LOADS

Reg2... as you know from my many posts on the forums.. I'm a fan of the chaindrive.

That being said...my 2 cents.

I believe that the short bolt on the lower pulley of the 2013-15 QD sleds... with no shoulder on the bolt, and no ability apply pre-load to the bolt ...can and would cause many people to have issues with the lower bolt breaking. Kind of like really wide wheels on a car, that have big negative offset causing the wheel studs to fail (also having no preload to speak of).

With a chain drive.. the forces are all centered over the splines of the drive/jack shafts.. with the QD...a lot of force is offset, outboard of the center-line of the driveshaft shaft... different loading on the chain and QD sprockets/pulley and spline connection.

IMO... as I said above... the best scenario would be to lengthen the spline-stub so that all forces can be centered over the splines of the driveshaft.

The upper sprocket is pretty much centered over the jackshaft splines, as you can see, the splines on the jackshaft are longer than the driveshaft... we didn't see much failure of the jackshaft-pulley bolts... the lower is offset as you can see in this photo (with the installation tools installed also). There were, however plenty of failures of the lower bolt.

To be noted... there were also many, if not most of the owners of 2013/14/15 Quickdrive™ equipped sleds that did not have any issues with the lower bolt failing.

BUT... if a longer bolt with more preload make the issue a "non issue" then... it's "fixed" right?... no new tooling for the driveshaft and no added grams to the sled.

Time will tell on the AXYS if the problem goes away when we hear of many of the riders on Snowest fourms that qualify for "Wrecking Crew" duty fare in the real world.

ProRide

AXYS

 

[Indy_500]

So, in Realville, bolt failure on a sled's lower chain drive sprocket was pretty rare, and lots of boosted 4s have proven the basic design, mass produced and around since Jesus was a private, works. It's not space shuttle stuff, the QD design just doesn't tolerate manufacturing variances, or the design needs to be improved (root cause). Ain't just the bolt, poo.

If you remember back to the edge days they had a lower gear bolt issue! I broke 2 off before tapping out every edge driveshaft I had to a 3/8".

 

[Teth-Air]

Teth-Air, It will be interesting to hear what you think about the fit of your AXYS splines on the shaft/pulley.

Heres my opinion, FWIW.

I do agree that the splines have something to do with the issues.... and that working in a mass-produced environment at the factory has something to do with it.
Also, any "tighter" fit... and you may be working for hours just to install a new belt.

In an ideal world...IMO... the splines on the shaft and in the lower pulley would be longer and have a larger machined shoulder on the shaft for the pulley to "register" against.

Polaris did take measures to improve the situation for 2016 by adding longer bolts, more than double the length, that allow for substantial preload to be placed on the bolt (see below)

Although the 12.9 are a harder bolt than the 10.9 grade that is offered... I'm not sure that it's a hardness issue..... as much as a pre-load issue and toughness issue. Also, a grade 12.9

I did help a person last year that broke a few of the lower bolts with his new aftermarket belt drive...which I attribute to more than normal shaft-spline-tolerance issues... I had him machine up a 26mm thick spacer to replace the washer and went with a longer lower ARP bolt (45mm) that would take preload. The problem went away, and has 800 miles on since instal last season. I'll see if he can send me some pics to post up.

I put the "spacer/longer-bolt" idea out there to some machine shops that do sled parts... so we'll see what shakes out for a product offering this year.

On the ProRide chassis... the "tougher" bolts from ARP are not much harder than the 10.9's and are more resistant to cyclic fatigue than the stockers or 12.9-grade. The ARP bolts, IMO, have a much higher Quality Control system behind them, as well as different metallurgy than even the majority of mil-spec or industrial hardware.



Heres a couple of posts from last season on this.

The 12.9 socket head bolts we use are harder yes but the supplier I got them from had a chart that also showed they had 50% more tensile strength than the stock bolt. Anyway my 15 Pro had much worse spline play than my 14 had. So I agree with Mountainhorse, the problem is that the bolt should only stop the pulley from falling off and should not be there to stop the rocking of the pulley on the shaft. Compare it to the bolt on the secondary clutch which only keeps the clutch from falling off the end, that is how it should be designed. You just can't use one bolt to pre-load the bearing AND hold the pulley from rocking, it will do one or the other but not both. If a longer bolt on the 16 allows it to flex more or stretch more, this is not good either. I can't see how it will fix it but I hope I am wrong.

 

[mountainhorse]

Re-thinking my previous post... the offset load and lack of a full length spline-stub may make the head of the bolt on the lower pulley the "failsafe" of the system in terms of impacts to the bellypan/lower-sprocket.

If the spline-stub were longer... there may be some bent shafts that would keep you from returning to riding quickly/affordably.... You could always carry a spare bolt with you.

Making the driveshaft/sprocket assembly so stout might just equate to other issues.



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