just sitting here thinking......

[wasted wages]

If you were building a buggy or truggy for off road only.....whats the down side of building your own chain driven transfer system out of pillow block bearings, keyed shafts, multi row toothed gears and chain ?

I know you wouldn't have the advantage of netural or taking it out of 4 wheel drive....but think about the unlimited amount of gearing and crawl ratios that could be obtained....

simple in design...parts easily available...heck...35 spline D60 shafts could be used and cut down...

build it like a divorced case...
build a crossmember cradle....mount the bearings,,,cut down some shafts...
get some gears and chain....your done !

I think I have seen something like this used on mud racers....but with only a single ratio...1.1

I'm thinking a primary chain from the trans to the output shafts, would allow the reduction to happen with different sized gears....

OK shoot holes in my theory !!

 

[K5dreamer]

search youtube for chain drive off road.. youll find some interesting stuff no doubt.

im at work and youtube is blocked, but there is a vid there of a crawler with 7 feet of suspension travel, all four tires are chain driven. your idea by comparison is quite simple.

 

[blazinzuk]

It would seem to have multiple ratios would require a semi complex setup. Certainly nothing you would be able to find spare parts for when it broke unless you where near a supply store.

To me part of building a buggy is making it bulletproof. I like innovation as much as the next guy, but I also hate not to wheel, so if I built a buggy it would simply be to wheel the terrain I wheel most often as often as possible.

The only real experience I have with chain drive anything though is on farm equipment. I am sure it could be done but I think the drive unit would end up being large and very heavy

 

[K5dreamer]

"hows that for articulation..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_F7QrR4Ur8

 

[blazinzuk]

"hows that for articulation..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_F7QrR4Ur8

Hence my statement about building something to wheel, that thing has been around for probably 10 years if not more. It took a long time to sort out all its problems

 

[diesel4me]

How about using 4 hydraulic motors,one at each wheel,that chain drives each wheel independantly,like a skid steer drivetrain...they you'd have infinite ratios and true 4 wheel drive...no mess of shafts,chains ,etc!..no clutching needed either!..

 

[Cornfield creations]

Yeah that was pretty sweet. Would take lots of multitasking to drive it. He had a 302 with a c6 then the differential sitting in the middle. It was all fixed. Then each wheel was independently driven by chains from the fixed mount diff.