I’ve found out my mag 201 is distorted, best case the holes in the sides for the bells are out of round, worst case it’s out of square. I need dimensions so that it can be checked, but can’t find anything, can anyone help? On aside note, if it’s dead, are Winters bare centers available? I emailed them, but no response.
A Rodsville housing will go right where the Halibrand used to. I wasn't aware the Winters were a direct replacement.
Rodsville is pretty much identical to your Halibrand. Add the cover and nobody will know the difference. Winters are a bit different. As Alchemy mentioned, not sure if they are dimensionally the same as your Hailbrand. Something tells me they are a tad shorter in overall length.
Hey @neilswheels, sorry you hadn't received an email from us yet. As noted above, our center sections are not a direct replacement for the Hal unit like the Rodsville is. We do make a kit called the Early Ford V8 Center Kit that uses the original Ford carrier ***embly, axles, and axle housings with our center section, ring & pinion, carrier bearing, and hardware, and we also offer a complete center that uses OE Ford axle housings. Those would be the two options for using our parts without starting completely from scratch (ie you could at least use your axle housings, etc.) but they'd be pricier than the bare Rodsville center. Good luck—let us know if we can help.
What kind of distorted are you talking about? Sometimes quick changes can be quite imperfect and still be OK for what we do. Got any pics? -Abone.
So the ‘big hole’ on both sides is out of round, but it’s been welded, so the question is has this occurred due to the heat from welding, if so, has it twisted the case, on any way. ***uming the welding has distorted the ‘holes’, it may have. There’s a couple of other issues, the side bells have been over tightened at some point, pulling the studs and swelling the magnesium around them, and a rather nasty helicoil .
Maybe a Rodsville is the way to go, but I’d really like to see if this is saveable, so ideally need dimensions to check. I could repair the sides, but how do I know that they will be centred and square to the pinion etc?
It is hard to tell from the picture, what is giving you the out of round indication? Do you have a bell you are trying to fit to it or are you using a measurement of some sort? -Abone.
You would need to fixture based off the bore for the pinion. What type of inspection tools do you have? You aren't going to be able to check this stuff with just calipers. I doubt you'll be able to find engineering drawings freely available. TBH, your best bet would be to send it to someone such as Hot Rod Works, have them inspect it, and then repair it as needed.
I think you're right, its going to have to go to someone that knows how these go together, and probably has the parts to do that, and knows how to measure it, not easy in the UK.
Neil, Somehow our email exchange got deleted. But, I was able to verify bolt locations from a NOS center section. The Bolt Circle for the axle housing is 9.25" It appears that this is probably plus or minus about .003". The I.D. of the pilot hole is 8.665". This agrees with the lip measurement on two different trumpets. The measurements you need to make are all possible using a Bridgeport style mill with a DRO, an edge finder, and a couple of mandrels. The actual remachining would take less time than the setup and verification of the location for the bolt holes. I believe that HRW would be the most likely candidate to have the tooling to do this. If they are not able to accommodate you, I would be willing to have a go at it. Time and materials and round trip shipping may help you decide how to proceed. Bruce
Thanks Bruce, that info will help a lot. Due to the distance, I'm in the UK, I think having it done in the US will be price prohibitive, but I have found a guy over here that is confident he can sort it out for me, lets hope he's as good as he is confident.. maybe it will live again .
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