Hot Rods Quick Change, Quickchange

Frames,

Private message sent.

 

Yes Dennis, they come with races and seals.

 

Bruce,

Let’s see some pics of your latest project..


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Be patient, several coming.
Have to do them in order.

Customers first

 

Haha

Bruce, this is Trey... that’s why I’m so anxious to see some pics.....!!!


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I figured that out a couple of days ago.

The polisher promised me it would be done tomorrow. Funny thing is that he was the one that told me he would have it done last week. It was his time frame, not mine.

I hope it continues to go smoothly. So far, no surprises.

 

Bruce
It’s all good. No hurry here... thanks for the update, and hope all continues to go well.


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Anything new to report? Wondering if polisher got the castings done and back to you


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No, the polisher did not get them back to me yet. I tried to call him earlier but no answer. He did call me back when I was busy. I called him back and no answer.
Tag, he's it.
I'm hoping he will have them done tomorrow. We live quite a distance apart, but meet half way. Mondays are usually good for both of us.

 

Elf told me some good news, says polisher is done and assembly is ready

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FINALLY!!!!!

I got the castings back from the polisher and we can proceed with the build. The customer is watching this thread so I want to be careful not to screw up.
These are pictures of the castings as polished. You will see some 'before' shots as we go along, as I did a mock up to get the differential fit close.
The center section is a Halibrand 301 of eleven bolt configuration. The side plates are Winters units to adapt a 3/4 ton center case to early Ford V8 trumpets. They are functionally the equivalent to the Halibrand H852 plates and the repop units I make. A little different styling though. Rear cover is a Halibrand, Torrance piece, and the front seal plate is a late model Halibrand (post Ted) aluminum part.

We'll get into the mix and match of these pieces later, but for now check out the fine polishing job. The blue trumpet section is what I use to mount to my assembly stand. I used some acorn nuts to show one of the possibilities for hardware.

 

Looks great Bruce!


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I like the looks. Still tough to find Halibrand Champ center sections.

 

Well, I've been working behind the scenes a little too long on this.

A customer wanted me to assemble his Quickchange with parts he had purchased several years ago. As stated a few posts ago, he had a nice Halibrand 301 center section, Winters Adapter side plates, differential and axle trumpets.
When building a rear end with Halibrand side plates, you generally have to narrow the differential to fit. Winters plates are different in that they have more of a dish and allow more room for the differential to fit. They also utilize a much larger bearing (the same one used on their live axle QCs). No problem for them as they just made the differential with bigger bearing snouts. Note that Halibrand cases are 4 3/8" wide while Winters are 3 3/4". So, when using Winters plates on a Halibrand center you have too much room inside. Seems simple enough to add a couple of spacers behind the carrier bearings, right? The only problem with that is that the register for the larger bearings is too short to support the bearing with the spacers.
This is how I approached this dilema:
First I made a sleeve that was shrunk fir onto the carrier stubs.
I then turned the outside of the sleeves to match up with the bearing journal diameter. This was a bit of a trick as the bearing had to straddle the joint of the carrier and sleeve. I could not find the seam with a dial indicator sweeping across the joint.
Then made two spacers from a sheet of 3/8" plate. Hole sawed out some disks and then drilled and bored the center of them for clearance.
Did a preliminary mock-up with the spacers in place and there is just enough clearance for a couple of shims.

This is the way Winters intended for the bearings to fit.


This is where the bearing needed to be.
Note: This is a set-up bearing that is honed to be a slip fit during backlash adjustment.


Facing off a chunk!


Action Shot


I.D. Bored

Ready to press on.


Both sides on.


This is the unit with shims to approximate the bearing spacers.

 

Love your work Bruce,

 

Looking good! Very healthy setup!


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One thing has me curious. Have any of your customers ever "damaged or broke" one you put together?

 

The only one I know about was many years ago. The customer bought a $1200 differential from me and had me install it in his pavement oval track car. I told him he should replace the R&P because it was showing signs of stress. (the pinions are subject to fretting at the root of the teeth, especially the 7 tooth 4.86). He didn't want to spend the money as one of his buddies told him that, "I see them worse than that and they last forever."
The very next Saturday night, he spun and wound up backing up in the infield. Broke teeth off the pinion and of course they went through the differential. Fortunately, Beaver at Winters was a stand up guy and gave him a new diff at cost. I put it back together for him @ no charge but with a new R&P.

Lesson learned, 'Don't let the customer talk you into something that you know isn't right.'

I have had a couple that had some issues with porous castings and trying to save some pretty used up pieces. But that just resulted in leaks.

I'm trying to have a guy let me put one together for his pretty serious drag car. He might be able to break one. Then I can tell all the guys that ask me, "How much power will they take?"

The answer is usually, "More than you are likely to make "

 

That is an outstanding record.

 

Carrying on with the Winters/Halibrand hybrid build.
Anyone building up any QC should pay attention here. This is the procedure used to establish the carrier preload. It is the same for big and little QCs and would work for a banjo as well.

INSTALLING THE PINION
1. Heat the case in an oven or grill to 350 degrees F.
2. Assemble the pinion with bearings, any spacers needed and the pinion nut. (DO NOT TRY TO SET PINION PRELOAD AT THIS TIME) Lube the bearings.
3. Paint the outside of the pinion bearings with Antisieze.
3. Place the front bearing on the lower shaft.
4. With the case at full temperature, and standing on it's nose, drop the pinon nose bearing into it's bore.
5. Immediately drop the pinion assembly into the case.
6. With the case on it's side, slide the lower shaft, with it's bearing, in from the front of the case
7. Put the rear lower shaft bearing in from the rear of the case and tighten the pinion retainer down with a couple of screws to hold everything together while it cools.

A helper is nice for this, but one guy can do it if he plans ahead.

Once everything gets back to room temperature you can proceed.

SETTING CARRIER PRELOAD
Install the right side bell or plate on the center. If you are sure you aren't going to take it apart again, go ahead and seal the joint with RTV.
Place the assembly on the right side
Install a set-up bearing on the right side of the differential (no shims)
Drop the carrier (no ring gear) into the right side bearing race
Make sure the carrier clears everything
Put a few shims on the left side of the carrier and install the other set-up bearing
Place the left side bell or plate on and try to spin it
If you have a gap between the case and left plate remove some shims
If the plate drags on the case, add more shims until it just clears
Measure the shims in your pack and record the total thickness
You can usually reduce this number by .001" or 002"

You can finish this in either of the following ways.
1. Tighten the left plate/bell to the center case and rotate the carrier with an axle shaft. If using a differential, be
sure to engage both side gears with the axle splines. You want some resistance but you should be able to turn it by hand. The torque spec I use is 30 lb/in.

2. On our subject rear end, there are plugs in the side gears. So, we cannot lock them together with an axle.
We will install the ring gear and do the carrier preload and backlash at the same time.
We don't want the carrier preload to be influenced by the pinion preload. So, we tighten the pinion nut until we can just feel drag on the bearings. Now, put the carrier with ring gear installed into the case. Rock the ring gear back and forth to feel the backlash. Move shims from the left side to the right side to increase backlash. Move shims from right to left to tighten it.
Here is the controversial part:
Try to get 'ZERO' backlash. I experimented with this for many years. I kept decreasing the backlash, thinking I would cause a problem when I got it too tight, but that never happened. I stumbled on an old Halibrand assembly manual several years ago, and lo and behold they had been doing that all along. They did recommend that you run the car with the the wheels off the ground to heat the gear oil before racing it. The explanation is that with all the magnesium or aluminum castings, as they heat up the case spreads and you gain clearance.
When you get it right, you should be able to torque the side plate(s) and have about 10 lb/in torque on the pinion to keep it rotating and not have any play when you turn the pinion back and forth.

When you have the carrier preload and backlash set, remove the left bell one more time, pull out the carrier and tighten the pinion nut to get 10-20 lb/in. rotating torque
The reason you only want about 10 lb/in torque on the carrier bearings when measuring through the pinion is that you have at least a 4X gear multiplication through the R&P.

Now, install the real carrier bearings, seal and replace the left plate/bell.
One last check turning the pinion through several rotations.
If it's all good put on the axle housings axles etc.
Put the big change gear on top to try it out (you know you want to)!

These are the 3/8" spacers I made and some Winters supplied shims. They vary in thickness from .009" - .067"


This is how the case looks when it's ready to do the set-up.


Spacer in place


These are the shims we needed to set the carrier preload. .047", .010 & .010" = .067" That's our magic number. Any combination of shims to get the preload and backlash set, need to add up to .067"


Spacer, shims & set-up bearing


Left plate installed. I took out a .010" shim and tried a .009" and it let the plate drag on the center. With the .010" it just glides. Note: There are no seals installed at this time, as that affects the rotating torque.

 

Can anyone tell me what kind of bells these are? They are both the same and seem very shallow?

 

I think they might be Nance. I've seen those before. The seller was told they are Frankland, but I don't think so. Looks like they're magnesium. Because they are so shallow, I don't think you can narrow a differential enough even on a a wide center case (Halibrand etc.)

I'm sure you have looked at them very carefully but sometimes there are very subtle markings.

This is a mystery bell/tube I have. Anybody have an idea of who S.L.M. is?

 

Thanks for the response. I have a Fankland center section and needed some bells. You are correct it may be impossible to find a narrow enough carrier. I was wondering if maybe these fit the big center sections but could use a V8 carrier?

 

I don't think that is practical. I have decided that when I build my S.L.M./Halibrand I'll narrow a spool.

 

I put these up against a Frankland center section I want to build and the OD of the bells measure 12 13/16" There is too much meat beyond the bolt patter causing it to foul the case and prevent it from mating with the center. What center do you think these are for? Does anyone have a normal set of bells (L and R) that I may purchase? I would also buy a center to make a rear with these bells. Thanks for any information!!

 

Those look sorta like my Winters 8-rib side bells, but compressed, if that makes any sense.

The paired bolts between the ribs that retain the tubes are moved way into the main body of the housing.


There is no appreciable "bell". Also, the bearings are farther inboard than customary. Either these go on a wider center section, use a narrower differential (or spool), or are to be used with adapters that make up the difference.

I know that Winters does indeed have a wider center section, that accommodates larger pinion heads for numerically lower ratios. It is intended for LSR cars, and takes a special, shallower right side bell, but yours are not one of those, unless it is an earlier version (plus they cast part numbers in).

 

Tudor,
I think what you have is some unfinished bells. The O.D. for 11 bolt bells usually is between 12 1/8" and 12 3/16".

Looks to me that they only need to be turned to make them fit. Does the bolt pattern match up? If so, I could fix these up in about 20 minutes. Are the bolt holes 3/8" or 7/16"?

I do have 11 bolt aluminum adapter plates to fit early Ford trumpets to that Frankland case. I also have an 11 bolt mag center section to go with those bells. (They would still need to be turned down)

See the link below my signature.

 

Thanks for looking at it. I can understand turning down the outside diameter of the bells. That's cool and I have a buddy that has a lathe we can do it on.

Now just to figure out a carrier that will fit the bells. Would need to assemble and get a measurement to determine what width we would be looking at.

If these special shallow bells with the OD turned down will do essentially the same thing as your adapter rings to put ford bells on a Frankland center - this could be a cool heavy duty Av8 axle and I do have a use for that. Wonder if the same Ring and Pinion/Carrier you use with the adapter plates and ford trumpets could be made to work with these bells in place of the adapter plates.

 

I mocked up the narrowest differential I have ever done, with some bearing cones and cups. This is a Gold track and I don't know of any others that can be cut this much.
The outside dimension of the bearing cups as assembled is approximately 6 3/8".

 

That wasn't a very good picture. if you need another, I can do that.

Also, If you are going to turn the O.D. of the bells, don't let the chips pile up. And, try not to generate too much heat especially on a finish cut. The magnesium WILL ignite!