Rear wheel spindle

This is meant as a genuine enquiry not an argument with experts with far more experience than me!!
There is a lot of talk about the standard rear wheel spindles inherent weakness.
I ran a tuned 850 in the 80's and used to ride it as hard as I could, all the time!
I never had any problems and from memory later in its life I changed all my fasteners to ones from D Middleton.
Now I have to admit I cannot remember if I fitted a one piece spindle or not.

I will be doing a rolling rebuild over the next year or two, possibly changing to stainless fasteners.
I am now nearing 60 and while I have fun I do not ride anything like I used to.
is it the consensus that I would be better off changing the rear spindle or not?

No easy answer to that here! We have plenty of forum members who have had the axles break, and plenty more who have ridden for years with the stock axle with no problem. It's pretty much a personal choice at this point. In my case, I'm still using the stock axle on one MK3, but going with a one-piece axle on the other one that I'm in the process of re-building. But I think I'll eventually end up with one-piece axles on both, just for my own peace of mind. I don't really see any downside to switching to a one-piece, except that it's not quite as easy to change the rear wheel (but still not very difficult).

Ken

See the recent posts on stainless steel wheel spindles.........

I just got my original hubs rebuilt with new rims , bearings and spokes from Madass , part of upgrade was both SS axles , will report back once on the road in a month or so .... my decision based most on cosmetics but I also believe the one piece rear to be the correct choice for me and my ride habits also easier to maintain ( clean ) ... truth is I'm not trained in all the fancy talk some were doing on the other thread and had to tune out .... was a bit surprised so many seem to know so much about the metal science .... spent my work life in water which is a bit different ...
Craig

Although the new single axle concept is very good, I am still in the oem camp. I really like being able to remove the rear wheel in 30 seconds or less.

If you or anyone else decides to keep the OEM set up, I think it is good to first set the chain tension and alignment. Then slacken the main axle, torque to spec the stub axle THEN torque the main axle.

I truely believe the some of the axle failures ( not all) come from torquing the main axle first then the stub axle. To me this would put a tremendous amount of stress, via a thread multiplying effect, right where the theads end on the main axle causing it to "POP" right there when conditions are just right or I guess just wrong in this case. And that is where almost all people report their fails.

If you turn the one piece axle around so the nut is on the right you can pull it part way out on the chain side and still quickly remove the rear wheel as before. Not really a big issue.

batrider said:

If you turn the one piece axle around so the nut is on the right you can pull it part way out on the chain side and still quickly remove the rear wheel as before. Not really a big issue.

Click to expand...

Hey, I didn't think that was possible (oem thinking). Makes sence. Thank you.

I use the Madass SS one piece axle in my race bike, if you put the nut on the right hand side, if you want to remove the rear wheel , just pull the axle out the LHS just enough to remove the rear wheel, the drum brake assembly will stay in place.
Just to make sure it all stays in plce with the rear wheel removed, I did this as well, tapped a thread into the end of the anti rotation stub, used a SHCS on this small ali plate to keep it all in place, loosen the plate , rotate 90 degrees to install/remove, rotate back to vertical and tighten the SHCS.

Stub axle or spindle first - no odds, tension (stress) is felt in both directions the parts aren't clever enough to know which is raising the tension.