broken drive axle for dt250

[esworp]

I don't know if anyone has been following my posts about my recent acquisition of a 1978 dt250.. Here's a quick recap:

prior owner indicated that he ran it after some storage time had elapsed, describing that it ran well that day, but would not start thereafter.

After a thorough look-through, I clean up the carb and ensured that I had spark and such. When I got a flywheel puller from the local yamaha shop, I pulled off the flywheel and found that the drive axle was damaged. The rail that guides the flywheel was shattered, allowing the flywheel to spin until the timing was beyond a running spec. :(

I got brave, and scored the axle and flywheel to mate them without the guide in place. After a hefty application of torque on the nut, the bike kicked over and ran really well. I didn't put it through any kind of major shake-down for obvious reasons.

SO! where do I buy a new dt250 drive axle? I see that most of the online shops I've found do not list any availibility. Anyone selling one?

If I end up having difficulty buying the parts, how crazy would it be to just have someone run a bead of welding to replace the shattered guide? even crazier: liberal application of permanent threadlocker on the flywheel-axle mating surface? Duct tape??

 

[dray]

Im not sure if I understand correctly, but if you are refering to the shaft the flywheel is mounted on, this is one of the output shafts on your crank assembly. Its not really a drive axel, although I suppose it could be if you really, really wanted it to be. On the crank shaft your flywheel is on, there is a "groove" , a key way. There is also one on your flywheel as you have stated. If you are saying the "guide rail" is smashed, I am going to assume you mean the "key". This is a small peice of metal that fits into the key ways to ensure the flywheel mates correctly to the crankshaft so timing is on. Now, if you key is sheared, but the keyways are fine, jsut get yourself another woodrow key and put it in and presto. Dont try to use a substitue for the key, they are softer metal and designed to shear instead of your shaft. I hope this helps, Im not 100% sure if this is what you mean. BTW, let me know if you need parts and I can look in my shop, theres been a ton of those around here. Cheers

 

[esworp]

sorry if i wasnt making much sense. Blame me looking at the wronge mircofiche on yamaha's parts archive. I am somewhat happy that it's just the woodruff key. looking around for a new drive axle was unpleasant.