Advantage to six wheel drive?

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Regardless of axle setup, it is strongly advised to have two support points (bearings) to fully support the "beam". Whether they are in the wheel (notice all AM wheels take two coaxial ball bearings) or in the frame (even cantilevered WCDs have two bearings per axle)...doesn't matter. You don't want to put radial loads onto a single ball bearing.

GOOD CATCH, Jared! Rookie mistake on my part...

So, I'll restate my thesis:

Live-axle Mass = sprocket, hub(s), shaft, wheel, mounting screws
Dead-axle Mass = sprocket, wheel, mounting screws

BOTH approaches use at least two bearings... the Live-axle would have at least _two_ friction points at each end of the shaft... and the Dead-axle would also have _two_ friction points built into the center of the wheel from the two separate bearings residing in the center wheel hub-area...

The mechanics of the Live-axle setup causes more friction/resistance at the bearings because of the angular pressures caused by the shaft pivoting inside the bearings as the pressures on the attached wheel (at far end of the shaft) change... times that resistance by six wheels...

I KNOW these are _minute_ differences (or, are they?)... but, it's fun to think this through...

HOW am I doing so far? Not bad for a former insurance-salesman, right? ;-)