As Falcon George and others said - get the housing checked as a final step. I can't see any way that the bearing saddles and ends can be in alignment if it had to be welded with that much offset at Moser in the first place. Unless the housing was somehow straightened (and without a bar, don't know how you could tell). Get the brackets on it and have it checked out - if it needs tweaking, they'll do it. One last question (and this isn't a poke at yah) - are you confident that your welding skills are sound? When I see somebody dressing welds like that . . . I always get a bit nervous (no offense intended!).
I don't understand what you guys are freaking out about ? .. If he did it the way I think he did it ...it should be identical to moser set-up with straight tubes If the center where the 3rd member bolts to is nailed down to the fixture and both ends are nailed to a rigid fixture the tubes can be completely cut off and put back on ... Whatever between the points nailed down to the fixture is meaningless .... UNLESS it was bent and under tension and put back together... Then yeah... It's probably fucked
Well my guess is it probably DID spring some when he took it out of the jig, and this is a tight tolerance deal, that's WHY we use a jig registered off the bearing journals in the third member. Also thirtytwo, go back and look at my post re: the tolerances you should be looking at for runout on this deal. At .005 max total runout per side, its not a "close enough for horseshoes" type of deal, and eyeballing it isn't going to get you there. As long as he is close-ish at this point, it probably doesn't make much difference, because its going to move more than .005 when he welds the brackets onto the tubes anyway. So it needs to be straightened after the brackets go on anyway.
Are you all saying if you start with say a coil leafed rear, whack the coil stuff off, the weld pads for leafs on it, the has to be checked? Or even relocating the pads? I never have, and put many a mile on my stuff...did I get lucky?
I have narrowed a few with bar and spuds , straightened one that was worse than this one .... I really respect you george ,but I think .005 is wishful thinking on an 1/8 wall tube hangin out about 2 feet from center section... That kinda reminds me of when I hear " my chassis is square within a 1/32" The bushings themselves are probably almost .005 smaller than the bearing hole just for a slip fit to begin with
Do you think that they were checked that close when Ford made them on the assembly line? As fast they are going down the assembly line, I am sure there was not a bar and donut jig and tweaked with a dial indicator before installed in each car and truck. There was some forgiveness in those set20 bearings.
The shop I work at now has one of these do-hickies and I think it's a piece of shit and I refuse to use it... I garentee you a rear done with this thing... isn't within .005 , I favor a bar full rearend width an old center section and 4 bushings
Guys When I cut the rear end loose after welding I was looking for movement or a popping noise ....Nothing If it's not right i figure it can be fixed or I can buy a new housing
No, but then I don't assemble a bottom end the way they did it at Ford either... Yes, its common to find housings way out, that's why people straighten them...
I agree 100% on both counts, total POS, I wouldn't even consider using that. As to the factory ford tolerances versus the way I do it, I can only offer advice based on the tolerances I use when I build one for myself. I don't do it half-assed just because its for someone else. Your mileage may vary...
My point was that the oem ones ran for years, and many miles before us hotrods started refining them even more.
Chuck Finders BTW, I try to make everything I work on perfect. 50 years trying and I haven't made it yet.
As long as the splines between the axle and the spiders have some slop, you can get by with more than .005 tolerance.
Good advice right here. I actually managed to warp one just moving the spring perches from one side to the other once. To this day I don't know how I did that, its not like I haven't moved a bunch of 'em.
Amen to that. But, the important thing is that you keep trying. Me,too. It's not that the imperfect piece is "good enough" it's just that most of the time that's the best I can do.
That is why those of us who are 'perfectionists' know that we have to continuously be a critic of our own work and strive to get better . . .
I'm gonna bet that Ford built the rear end housing on a multi million dollar jig that had expansion and shrinkage factored in to the final product. What happened after they left the factory is a whole different batch of worms.
From the beginning, I was surprised at that 'extra add-in', and mortified with its wall-thick misalignment! But as for its insertion in the first place: Where did it specify an 'extra piece'? Looked to me like a clear case of "I sawed it off twice, and it STILL too short!" Every one I ever narrowed ended up with one weld per side. That's all they got. No extra charge. Fack the 'alignment'. Supposed to be 'aligned' prior to the last flange welded.
A whole lot of work usually comes after "Supposed to be...". Still wondering why we haven't heard from Moser?
Quote from Moser....."we are not in a business of used parts".... First thing Greg Moser would do , was check a axle to see if it was bent. Took 3 axles to get mine right. .....and a video of one they supplied and was out of round ... After that, we cut out own housings, and use strange for the axles.
Really good point Larry. We tend to assume Ford built them that way based on looking at dozens of 30-50 year housings. We (me anyway) need to ask ourselves how many curbs those housings have belted, and so on in the intervening years.
Semantics. It appeared that the OP took his used part to Moser Engineering and they worked on it. Seems to me that that is being in the used part business. True, they may only sell new parts, but I will assume they charged the OP to work on his used parts and, thus, they are indeed in the used part business.
I just saw this thread and can't believe anyone that can weld that well wouldn't at least center things up a bit. I've never done this, but I would make sure everything was lined up out of principal.
As luck would have it I am narrowing a Dana 60 right now, I'm not ready to weld the ends on it yet but slid them on so you can see how an alignment bar works. The 1st you can see inside the case there are fixtures where the bearings go, the alignment bar (1.450" tool steel) is slide thru and the saddles torqued and the bar can be rotated, it isn't bound up. This is a very precise, machined fit - probably to the .005 mentioned earlier. The new housing ends are fastened inside another fixture and this is slid onto the alignment bar to weld to the axle tube. I just stuck them on for the picture, I am still working on the brackets and not ready to weld. the 2nd picture show the new ends and the fixture. The new ends are precisely aligned to the bearings in the carrier, the tubes are always a little wonky but when welded the ends are true to the carrier bearing and not true to the tubes. The ends are also the last to be welded to the tubes. The 3rd pic is shows getting the brackets positioned (I don't have a fixture for the Dana, I do have fixtures for 9" ford to hold the brackets where they need to go, and had to do a manual setup) but in the welder needed to weld these things properly, I am welding the Dana at about 350ish amps to get penetration.
Ford machined the housings after they were welded. I've seen many OEM 9" housing ends bored off center to compensate for warpage.
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