Tried Dropping an axle for the first Time.

Nice work! Thanks for posting the pics.

 

Nice.

 

Now THAT'S real hot rodding!!

 

Looks good, thanks for sharing with us.

 

Looks real nice, but you realise that you axle now is shorter than before?. I build my jig to strech the axle, when dropping it. When everything is cooled down I've lost 1/5" (5mm.)

 

Nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4ttruk

 

Well done.

 

You dont want to do that. Propane burns carbon away from the steel. Oxy -Acetyleneflame burns with an excess of carbon. As long as you only heat it redhot youre fine. Yellow-whiteish with sparks flying - - it's junk!

 

I was looking at an old Tex Smith article a while back (Rod Action?) and he was talking about how axles are dropped.

Showed a picture of one of the axle dropping companies and said in the blurb below that the axle end was heated in a furnace and the end was quenched right away, before dropping, to prevent the kingpin hole from elongating as the axle went thru the dropping process.

I'm pretty sure this "quenching" wasn't just a routine dipping in cold water, with no consideration of how the metal would be effected.

These guys were trained blacksmiths and unlike us...KNEW exactly what they were doing.

For us...the more knowledge we can put together thru threads like this, the better a job we can do!

Drop looks awesome man...

 

Well done, I like it.

 

Man you did a hell of a job on that, very nice !

 

Good to know!

TP

 

Thanks a lot guys. A buddy of mine is coming over on Saturday and we're going to try another Model A axle for him and if it works out were going to give the 32 Heavy a try. I'll post some pics on how they turn out.

 

Well I was out in the shop tonight with the guys from the club (Vancouver Kingsmen) and we took the torch to a couple more axle's. One more Model A axle for a 4 inch drop and a 32 Heavy for a total of a 3 inches of drop. Here they Are.

Brad

 

Very nice work, are you able to post somes pics of your process.

 

I'd be interested to know the whole process myself.

Have you had to junk any?

 

What ever your doing,keep it up they look spot on!

 

Great!
A challenge to do, and heavy axle need heat!
Mine done with a home made jig and friends.

A try with a axle saved from a trailer (note the cuts below the perches holes...)

I can know fixing the old cuts...

1 inch drop from the original, nice with mechanical brakes!

 

***us - shows how EXCELLENT technical info never goes out of style!! Can't imagine how many new hits your 2003 post has had lately!!

Flatnasty - fantastic work and thanks for sharing! One question - you said you heated it outside of the jig, then mounted it and pressed it....how did you keep it hot throughout the bending?

Cheers to all the "droppers"!

 

Hey E tec

I found when I was heating inside the jig the jig actualy acted like a big heat synk and it took forever to heat it up. So I get the axle red hot then mount it up and while I do the pressing I keep it hot with the tourch.

 

Good thinking on the 'heat sink'. 40% loss of gas/oxy there...