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How long is too long to wait for driveshafts? Looking for a driveshaft shop...

desertPOS

desertPOS

Red Skull Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2020
Member Number
2236
Messages
331
Ordered up driveshafts at the beginning of March, card was charged in full on the same day (client's card fyi) - originally was given a 6-8 week turnaround time due to being busy/covid/all that... For the past 3 months, every time I call I'm told basically that everything's on the bench ready to be welded, should be done later this week or early next. Lately I've been calling weekly and told the same thing every time, like it's just a canned response. He assured me that we're not waiting for any parts - he has everything he needs and just has to build them out.

Parts ordered were a 1410 yoke for a 14-bolt, rear driveshaft with 1410 single on one end, 1410 high clearance double cardan tcase side, .25" wall and boot over the slip. For the front shaft I ordered the tcase half of what will be a two-piece shaft, with the idea that once I get that mounted up I can cycle everything and order the other half with exact measurements. At that point, I'd send the half I already have back to the builder to balance everything together before sending back. Specs are 1410 single cardan both sides with carrier bearing. Minus the portion of the front shaft that has yet to be ordered, this all came out to the tune of ~$3k

Don't want to mention the shop, but it's a respected shop, and for all I know all driveshaft shops have the same issue right now - 6 months seems excessive though. Anyone else had this experience with other shops lately?

Looking for recommendations for other driveshaft shops that are reputable, and would like to make sure I can find somewhere that can build what I need before trying to get a refund. The front shaft I need should be semi straight forward, although being able to show someone the setup it's for and angles we're running and getting their opinions on what I need would be great. The rear shaft needs a high clearance cv on the tcase end (like 30º minimum), and I also need to be able to order what I need to swap the 14 bolt yoke from 1350 to 1410 - and preferably heavy wall thickness on the shaft tube.

What say IBB?
 
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That's crazy! Too long a wait and overpriced at that.
You could probably order most of that stuff from northern drivetrain and have the parts to you within a week or two and take it to a local shop if you have one. The 1410 double Cardon is the though one.

My local shop is Bayshore truck equipment in Fresno,CA. They do a lot of ag stuff and might have the parts you need like heavy wall tube and large joints. I haven't ordered anything since covid but it was always a 1-3 day turn around for driveshafts.
 
Sounds familiar. Called and ordered shafts last year, said I have to have them by this date (don’t remember exactly, but somewhere in the 4-6 week leadtime). Said that’s doable. Checked a week out, still ok. Tuesday before leaving Wednesday, jumped on him over a call since no updates. Changed deliver to overnight to the destination and winched the Jeep on the trailer and prayed they would actually show up. They did, but that was a stressful 7 hour tow/drive. Some machining regrets in the new output flanges/driveshaft flanges that took way too much effort to get all bolted up, but they were there.
 
Dan said:
That's crazy! Too long a wait and overpriced at that.
You could probably order most of that stuff from northern drivetrain and have the parts to you within a week or two and take it to a local shop if you have one. The 1410 double Cardon is the though one.

My local shop is Bayshore truck equipment in Fresno,CA. They do a lot of ag stuff and might have the parts you need like heavy wall tube and large joints. I haven't ordered anything since covid but it was always a 1-3 day turn around for driveshafts.
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1410 double cardan with 42º max working angle and some fancy Italian ujoints - although they may as well claim 60º working angle and doubles your horsepower if they never show up...

To me, it was the cost of a flatter belly and being able to utilize all of the rear shocks...
 
Driveline services in sac can do the same thing. Ive been using them for 20 uears for my personal and all the shop building i needed.
 
way too long way too over priced, you need to find a new shop. theres no other cities near by?

every time i go to my drive line guy(santa rosa ca) i leave feeling like he under charged me and i dont know how he makes enough money to stay in business
 
Dispute the charge before the time frame is up. Tell them if they have them done within in a week payment can be reissued.

I've always used Jesse at High angle, but I also used to live 5 Mins away. He would sometimes take a few weeks if I didn't need them right away, if you really need them he can usually make something happen quick. Face to face and cash is always a little different, but either way, he's awesome.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Dispute the charge before the time frame is up. Tell them if they have them done within in a week payment can be reissued.

I've always used Jesse at High angle, but I also used to live 5 Mins away. He would sometimes take a few weeks if I didn't need them right away, if you really need them he can usually make something happen quick. Face to face and cash is always a little different, but either way, he's awesome.
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That's who I've been waiting for for 6 months - I would definitely have stopped by in person by now if I was closer, but I'm down in Bakersfield. I always thought of him as a good reputable shop since the old Pirate days - I think the first driveshaft I ordered from him was in '02 or '03. I'm going to call him on Monday to lay out a deadline and discuss refund, just thought I'd talk to another shop or two first to make sure things aren't plugged up everywhere else as well, and make sure I can get a CV that works at the angle I need.

And that's probably the sticking point for me, and why I didn't go to the local shop I've used here before - I saw the high angle CV as something special that most people probably wouldn't have, although that was an assumption and I didn't call around to double check. I know JE Reel has some high angle CVs as well - I'll probably do a bit of calling around on Monday to see who can do what...

I know some things have been a little nutty with covid and all that shit - radiator I ordered for the same build was quoted as 6 week turnaround and took over 3 months to get, so I've been trying to just be patient. Covid, wild fires, pg&e blackouts, etc - was trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but 6 months is pushing it:mad3:
 
i purchased two driveshafts from Shaun at Tom Woods last November. Shaun gave me a ballpark quote over the phone a couple weeks prior to me ordering and when we finalized all the details, the new value of the products was about 150 ish dollars more than what he originally ball parked me. Shaun honored his original ball park quote to me even though I told him that wouldn’t be necessary since it was just a high level request.

Shaun also had the driveshafts shipped with 5 days after ordering (and I ordered the Monday before Thanksgiving). I was nervous as I thought shipping was going to be crazy costly since one shaft was 4” OD and 68” long, but again Shaun had some killer rates and the cost to build the shafts, and ship them were still competitive with my local shops, if not cheaper still. The big win here was timeframe as my local shop at the time told me he was easily 6 weeks out.

In my experience, Shaun’s service was always on point. He always made time to discuss technical details over the phone, backed his products and quotes, shipped on time and was competitive to my local markets.

I will definitely look to go with Tom Woods first for my next driveline purchases.
 
desertPOS said:
That's who I've been waiting for for 6 months - I would definitely have stopped by in person by now if I was closer, but I'm down in Bakersfield. I always thought of him as a good reputable shop since the old Pirate days - I think the first driveshaft I ordered from him was in '02 or '03. I'm going to call him on Monday to lay out a deadline and discuss refund, just thought I'd talk to another shop or two first to make sure things aren't plugged up everywhere else as well, and make sure I can get a CV that works at the angle I need.

And that's probably the sticking point for me, and why I didn't go to the local shop I've used here before - I saw the high angle CV as something special that most people probably wouldn't have, although that was an assumption and I didn't call around to double check. I know JE Reel has some high angle CVs as well - I'll probably do a bit of calling around on Monday to see who can do what...

I know some things have been a little nutty with covid and all that shit - radiator I ordered for the same build was quoted as 6 week turnaround and took over 3 months to get, so I've been trying to just be patient. Covid, wild fires, pg&e blackouts, etc - was trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but 6 months is pushing it:mad3:
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Well shit.

I know it's just him and his son at the shop. His work load seems to vary a lot, so I don't think he can really hire a 3rd guy. In fact his old 3rd guy is one of my very good friends and his schedule used to vary a lot (he was going to school)

I'd give him a call and really level with him. I think he will pull through for you.
 
Could have been impacted by the fires.

I've ordered 2 shafts from woods and they shipped out next day both times after I ordered. I didnt order 1410 high angle stuff though. That was pre covid.
 
BLKNBLK said:
Got my new JE Reels in a week...
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I only ordered one, and pretty boring by this post's standards (1350, roadgoing CV, normal length big diameter slip, thick wall tube) during summer 2020, JEReel had it in my hands in a week 1k miles away, on a "get to it when you get to it, I don't need it for a couple months".
 
Tom Woods... two days to leave their door on most everything... and they support this board, racers, and rockcrawlers.
 
I'd found a place called Tatton's through ebay years ago that had a really quick turnaround, but I don't know if they get into the 1410 cv and such degree of things.
 
I ordered a 1410 CV shaft from Jesse last year. Card was charged 4-6-20 and I received the shaft 6-9-20
 
If you can, I'd look as local as possible, and perhaps look into an independent truck shop (not tied to a single manufacturer). They are used to quick turnaround times as they are usually trying to get an angry truck driver down the road.
Local to the midwest is Inland Truck Parts. They can build almost anything, and doing shafts for light-duty truck stuff is almost like a vacation for them. They are not the cheapest, but use good quality parts and tubing, and warranty their work. ITP is an outlier as they are an independent but also a chain as they have something like 9 locations throughout the midwest. I'm certain you can find some type of place similar to this in your locale.
 
I don't like these topics and don't normally respond but almost started this exact same one in June.

I put my order in early March for a trip the end of May. New build so I wanted a few weeks to drive and debug. I was told end of April no problem. Got the rear shaft 7 days before the trip (second week in May) and the front shaft came the day before I was leaving. Nothing special, 1350 CV's to yoke or flange with normal slip travel.

Numerous phone calls, emails, texts and not getting answers I figured it was a lost cause. The begining of May I found an Adams TJ 1350 CV shaft on Craigslist for $100 and dropped it off at a Valley Truck Parts in Grand Rapids MI and they lengthened it and added the Ford flange for $150. Turn around was two days.

Since I had no expectation the front shaft would show up I had them make me one identical to the front shaft I ordered. 24 hrs from order to pickup and it fit perfectly. It was $350 for brand new components. Half of the ordered shaft.

No idea how well the shafts I ordered in March would work. The Adams and Valley shafts have been through 5 days in Moab, two days in Sand Hollow, two trips to the UP and 2000 road miles with no issues.

Originally, I wanted to support the vendors that bring new products to market even if it cost a few dollars more. In the end I almost blew a two week wheeling trip and wasted a lot of my time.
 
I'm in Canada and adams had me a custom shaft within 2 weeks.
 
Had a good talk with him earlier this week and we got it figured out, and I received a tracking # for the rear shaft today, and supposedly the front will be shipping out tomorrow.

Since I mentioned who it was, I will say that he answers the phone about every time I call, which is probably part of the problem if he's dealing with phones all day and running a one or two man operation, but I get the impression it's more of just a time management issue. I get the impression they might never turn down more work, even if they're backlogged into oblivion, but also never hire more people or expand to be able to handle it. Pure speculation from my end...

As far as the actual rear shaft is concerned - the CV is at 30º when the suspension is at full droop, and the only shops I spoke to that could make something that would work well in a part-time street driven rig were High Angle Driveline and JE Reel. I talked to someone at Tom Woods this week and they've got 0 solutions they can provide me with. Talked to a few other shops this week as well, and just didn't really have anything that seemed to me like a good solution, other than suggest that I make changes on my end to make standard joints work. Also had a few places tell me that you can't order a higher angle 1410 CV that doesn't need to be greased constantly, and just wouldn't work for a street application...

JE Reel has a 1410 CV that can go up to 38º, which probably would have been a better option (cheaper), except 6 months ago I couldn't get them to get back to me in answer to questions I had for them or get anyone to quote the work out - at the time I know they had at least one employee sick with Covid, so it is what it is... Talked to someone there this week and they were able to answer all my questions right away and quote the job out same-day. As such, 6 mos. ago, I pulled the trigger with High Angle, and although overkill, I'm getting a 42º 1410 CV. Both companies claim that their 1410 CVs need to be serviced similar to any other shaft, which I hope is accurate.

So all that to say, if you need a generic driveshaft then yeah, you can probably just get it done at whatever local shop is close to you. But there does seem to be a difference in capability from one shop to the next if you need something more specific...
 
Glad you got it straightened out.

To be fair, hiring anyone is a nightmare anywhere. Add to that Jesse is in a small town, then on top of that, 90% of that town was wiped out in 2018 by the fire. Many never came back.
 
Funny. I was going to come here and tell you no matter what people here say don’t go to Jessie.

Wrong parts, slow, expensive, and minimal help when he builds them wrong. I’ve had to scrap his new out of the box stuff.

Go to your local truck service center.
 
If things end up not working out with HAD I 100% recommend Adam's driveshaft out of Vegas. I currently live in TN and have ordered shafts through him twice so far this year and both times the shafts are a 1 day turn around and at my doorstep within the same work week. Great customer service and beefy parts with a KILLER price.
 
If I didnt make my own for #rockcrawler, I would go Tom woods or JeREEL. That is purely from internet chatter.
 
My local driveshaft shop builds them while I wait at the bar across the street. That's for off-the-shelf parts. Custom machining for thick tubes takes a day or two.
 
Eric said:
My local driveshaft shop builds them while I wait at the bar across the street. That's for off-the-shelf parts. Custom machining for thick tubes takes a day or two.
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For regular stuff I would go to a local shop who I've used a handful of times - like I mentioned above I needed some stuff that was a little out of the box and the local shop couldn't do it. Although I have them shortening a shaft for me right now that was ready to pick up next day...


Got the shafts I ordered and as long as they work as they should, they seem pretty bitchin - just wanted to give an update that I got everything. The rear 1410 CV pictured below maxes out at 42º and is pretty big - 3" .25 wall tube coming off of it. Had to used 12pt nuts to fit a socket in there.

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Front shaft has a self-centering pilot bearing that I mocked up and got the specs I need to get the axle-side shaft shortened to work. Dropped the tcase-side shaft off at a machine shop on Fri to get .25" machined off the radius of the center flange to match the flange of the shaft that bolts to it, and give a little more clearance clarence to the tranny pan. Trying to keep the shaft as straight as possible so it's not doglegged too much, but shit's tight:homer: As soon as the machining is done on that, I'll drop it off to get phased up and balanced altogether with the axle-side shaft, then we should be good to go:smokin:

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