Solid Aluminum Coupler?

A buddy of mine is currently working on making some solid plastic couplers for me, and has already given me a solid aluminum coupler for the supercharger. The reason I didn't just order them off the internet is I can get the same thing locally, and way cheaper! My question is this: Does it matter if the coupler is a plastic (high heat and oil resistance with a little flex) or aluminum? The only thing I can think of is that the plastic might absorb any shock transmitted throught the input shaft better than the aluminum one.

I've included a pic of the aluminum one below. What do you think? If people want I may be able to get a few more made and sell a couple. I can also get the bearings and seals. If there's an interest, then I may start a thread on the classifieds for the sale of parts.

I wouldn't want the aluminum one, mainly because as it wears the aluminum particles will get into the bearings. That and I would expect it to be a little to rigid and rattle unless under a load.

David

We've made the coupler so that it's a tight fit on the pins for the gears and input shaft (about a thou undersized) . I guess I might have to put it in a supercharger and see what happens after some heat cycling.

Dave, do you forsee a problem with the aluminum wearing enough to produce particles? I didn't think there would be that kind of friction on the coupler. I completely replace my oil every season (I get the BP2380 oil for really cheap ).

Before you install that coupler in your supercharger or potentially try to convince others that they should use it, I would suggest you investigate why the engineers of the eaton roots supercharger chose to use a material other than aluminum for theirs. Don't take my statement as a slam, take it as incentive to educate yourself before making a hasty decision. There is a reason why Eaton and the aftermarket does not use solid aluminum couplers.

Paul

Paul, I agree with you totally, but I never meant to lead people to belive that aluminum couplers are the way to go. I was just asking opinions and thoughts about using them. I figured that with the knowledge and experience around here someone might have looked into it and might like to share their info. I will be talking to charles warner and a few others in the industry to see if they can help at all, as well as doing some testing with a spare blower I have.

The aluminum coupler in the pic is just a piece of scrap we had laying around when I started talking to him. About 10mins on the CNC and he gave me that as a reference. I've narrowed it down to about two different types of plastic after going through about 20. They're all oil and heat resistance, take a high shock, and have a very good compression and tension property.

If anyone has any ideas or issues, please let me know in case I'm over looking or forgotten something.

ss_scuba said:

The aluminum coupler in the pic is just a piece of scrap we had laying around when I started talking to him. About 10mins on the CNC and he gave me that as a reference. I've narrowed it down to about two different types of plastic after going through about 20. They're all oil and heat resistance, take a high shock, and have a very good compression and tension property.

If anyone has any ideas or issues, please let me know in case I'm over looking or forgotten something.

Click to expand...

I went with a moly-filled nylon. It has properties that're gonna be pretty tough to beat with any other material except Peek. Then again, Peek can be abrasive in certain applications and the cost is astronomical.

'bird