1st run, broken half shaft

[Matson]

Ran the cobra for the first time today and broke half shaft.
Only took off at 1500-2000 rpm. Made sure TC was off.
Not sure how it happened. Should I have not givin it full throttle off the bottom? Not sure how it happened so easily. The car is bone stock with 570miles on it. Is this somehting I am going to look forward too after adding some mods?

 

[oldmodman]

With that easy a start, and I am assuming you have the stock tires, I would have to say that you had a defective half-shaft. Some people have thousands and thousand of miles and better than 50 drag strip starts on theirs. With no problems, as long as they are not getting any wheel hop. Any sustained wheel hop can break the half-shaft almost instantly.

 

[08snake]

If there was no wheel hop, then I don't understand. Like the poost above said, I myself have abour 50 launch's at the strip with no issues on the half-shafts. Wheel hop will destroy your half-shafts if you're don't get off of it in time. I've been pretty lucky, on the rare occassion I've gotten wheel hop, to be able to get off of it. Both on F1's and DR's. SR's not so much. Sorry to hear about it.......

 

[maoun]

some are good some are bad...replace them with the AR ones and try again

 

[03DOHC]

That sucks. Sorry to hear it.

I had my car on the rack thursday and I checked out my half shafts. My inner CV joints seem to have lots of slop in them. Mine also make a clink clink noise and I've never made any passes at the track yet. Also noticed my rear diff cover is leaking some. I hope I don't break on my first pass.

 

[jordanvraptor]

I had the clink clink noise and took it in to my dealer. They replaced both half shafts under warranty. It could hear this noise when starting out slowly in first gear with the windows down and minimal background noise.

 

[dataangel]

Heh. . . that clink-clink (aka, the "tink") is a bitch. I think it's a defect in our rear-end design.

I had it lightly about two months ago. Took it in for service and the tech retorqued the part that connects the halfs to the diff (don't know the term for it). It went away until I got some very light wheel hop on a launch, then came back with a vengeance: started quiet, then got progressively louder.

Took it back in and they replaced the whole halfshaft / connecting assembly. That fixed it good until last week when I got some more hop at the track (not terrible or sustained, just some), and now it's making the sound (quietly for now) again.

The car's going back in on Tuesday and, my guess is, they'll just replace it all again next week. If they do, I think I'm going to try to get the IRS and diff bushings that you have, Jordan, in the hopes that I can stop it from hopping and loosening up again.

Eventually, if the problem is widespread enough and costing enough warranty money, Ford will engineer and issue a general fix. I hope that happens with this problem, because it's way irritating.

On the plus side, I've run the car very hard while "tink"ing, and never have had any other breakage issues.

Oh, BTW, my diff cover was leaking as well. . . I think that's common on these things. Ford resealed it and it looks fine so far.

 

[Matson]

I didn't notice the wheel hop, and I have did some racing. I am hoping that it was just a bad part. Luckily, there was a ford dealership within trailer distance, and we got it there the same day. Hopefully it will be ready for next weekend. It looks like there are only a few things to change out in the suspension to help fix the problem, correct? It looked like some aftermarket bushings? The biggest problem of the weekend was all the bowtie competition watching on the sidelines, unfortunatley the all wanted to help push it on the trailer.

 

[flyn high again]

That's too bad. It's no fun breaking at the track. The rear halfshafts are starting to look like a problem area to me. I hope Ford comes out with some stronger parts for the fixes. Maybe they could get them from Amazon. LOL.

 

[Matson]

Does anyone sell aftermarket half shafts?

 

[dougwg]

Read~~~>http://www.svtperformance.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33487&highlight=halfshaft

Call and order~~~>http://www.amazonracing.com/indexlogo.jpg