On May 16, 5:26*pm, Brian Whatcott wrote:

Car engines often feature a crank damper on the front end.
This stops the angular oscillations that lead to crack ups.

The damper is to stop the crank's "ringing", not to absorb power
pulses. If the crank gets to vibrating at certain frequencies it
usually breaks.

Manual transmissions feature sprung drive on the live clutch plate.
This can serve a similar purpose. Besides the fluid flywheel there is
also the rubber spider drive to the half shaft, on some sports coupes.

The clutch's springs are supplemented by the torque-pulse-absorbing
abilities of the quill shaft, drive shaft, and axle shafts. Most of
those aren't present in a redrive.


As an odd-ball thought, wouldn't it be nice if two tubes sized to fit a
fabric reinforced hose pipe between them, and epoxied to both tubes
were arranged with a gap in the inner steel tube, then a gap in the
outer tube alternately - arranged to provide angular give in 'series'
for a soft, vibration absorbing *drive shaft....

I've done that, on electric motors. It doesn't last very long.
There is too little arm involved. As the rubber flexes, it heats up
and delaminates from the fabric. Blows up like the flat tire on a
semi.

Dan