Do any of you folks know who still makes these "tire couplings"? I'm trying to find a Dayco EZ Flex FC-8, but can't find any information on who sells them, and can't reference this number to anything.

These used to be fairly common couplings, but I sure can't seem to find one.

Thanks in advance...

" REXNORD " makes " OMEGA " brand elastomeric (tyre) coupling. In few applications, we use it.

Hi Stan,
Was going to e-mail you but they were migrating our PC stuff to another server yesterday and wiped out everything I had in Lotus notes. Tried to find info on the one you specified above but came up empty handed like you. Not sure if this will help but we use these on our cooling towers. http://www.dodge-pt.com/products/pt_components/couplings/paraflex_coupling.html We also use the omega brand.

Rex Omega is the orange boot coupling. It is a poor coupling in my opinion and one I don't especially like due to installation problems with the characterics of the elastomer, re-setting in a short time after initial installation and frequency characterists. Plus it is time stamped for replacement. It can fail with one half flying off while the other half is drive the machines off their foundations and even bending shafts - yes, I've seen it.

The Dodge paraflex is a good coupling for what it is designed for and intended use. It is somewhat difficult to install and may produce poor running speed vibraion characterists if used on high HP @ speeds above 1200 RPM. Or this is my opinion.

And I'm having a 'not-too-good-of-a-day'.

I also don't like the orange Omega couplings. They don't look to me like the balance characteristics would be very good. Surprisingly though, there are some small ones on some 3600 rpm Hoffman blower that I watch that run fairly well. But we've had problems with the larger ones on 1800 rpm compressors.

As Sam mentioned, they are bad to take a "set" (from the constant torque). If badly misaligned for very long, if you realign properly, the vibration may even be worse as the set in the coupling works against the machines. Anytime you realign one of these, I'd replace the element.

Thanks for your responses. Here's the reason why-cooling tower cell vibrates at .9 ips at motor speed. Aligned it myself to well within 0.003". Ran motor uncoupled - 0.025 ips. No soft foot, no structural (that I can find) problems.

This tire coupling is new, but has already developed a deep crack, which runs radially around the rubber element.

After some headscratchin', I've decided to replace it with a Sure-Flex type coupling.

Any thoughts?

PS - I do like the new Board. Thank you all for your input.

Stan,

I tried my best to find the Dayco couplings and found a site for their belts, but it is not what you would call user friendly and I think they must have sold their coupling design to someone else.

With the Sure-Flex coupling, the only caution I have is about the hytrel sleeves. If they are applied with too high a service factor or in applications where there is a lot of starting and stopping or reversing, they can fail repidly with one of the rows of teeth shearing off in a ring.

They are so torsionally stiff that they do not hold their position in the hubs as well at the EPDM rubber ones and can chatter causing the failures I described.

If you are going to use the Hytrel sleeve, make sure your service factor is no higher than about 2.5 or 3 and if there are frequent starts and stops (like in an application such as a cooling tower for instance) you will be better off going up a coupling size and staying with the EPDM sleeve.

Good Luck,

Danny