flexible drive shaft couplings

[Scarpia]

I've been waiting a while whilst Cavalitto remanufacture the cloth flexible discs that are a feature of the aprilia driveshaft.They should be ready any time and are quite expensive at 130 euro a piece but significantly cheaper than certain other suppliers..... .It suddenly made me question if they are the same as fitted to any other earlier models ? or does anyone know of a modern alternative material?

[donw]

William

How about this Ebay item!

Item number: 350084662387 starting price is only 280 euros must make Cavalitto seem cheap.

Had some Augusta couplings made a few years ago by the maker of the Lambda Consortium ones recently sold the last for £40 but suspect it might cost a bit more to make them now.

Don

[Scarpia]

Hmmm, I had seen it and the problem apart from the price is the likely deterioration with such an old item. New ones from cavalitto will be 130 euro! The only problem being I just heard they won't be ready till October

[chugga boom]

we make our own out of conveyor belt, pretty much the same material, went to turin and back on them fine and still going strong

[Scarpia]

I was thinking along similar lines.Just a question of guessing how much give there should be in the original material compared with some industrial rubber belting.The original looks like some sort of cloth but it's hard to tell its so rotten.

[chugga boom]

like i said conveyor belt works great, we went to a company who sent us some samples of various thickness and materiel and chose the nearest to the origional although it was alot more supple,its quite a big job to manufacture them and not worth making just 1 set for your own car, its just as easy to make 3 or 4 sets while your at it as we made all the metal plates for the through bolts new also, if you want advice on making them i'm sure my dad can advise, 1 really strange thing that happens is when you rivit the metal plates into possition the coupling or pcd of the bolts actually expands! this is why we fitted new un drilled plates and drilled the holes for the bolts last of all, they have been fitted for approx 4000 miles now with NO problems what so ever, jp

[johnturner]

You can make these out of pit or other belting but it is tedious, helped a bit if you can use the plates and bushes from the old couplings.  As I recall they were originally bushed but more recently simply drilled more or less the right size, presumably to keep the price down. Alternatively you could try GKN Transmissions at Walsall:
Middlemore Lane West
Aldridge,
Walsall
WS9 8DT
UK
Tel: (44) 01922453371
They have absorbed what was Hardy Spicer which made the original couplings and have continued to make them for us for the Lambda.  I have always found them helpful and it is just possible that they have the drawings for the Aprilia on file.