when jack was alive he told me he had ball bearings in his 1940 BANJO rear end. where would you put the bearings? on the outer axle's by the hubs ? i'm going to do a new rear end for my car mine has 4:11s and i want to put 3:27s in it so my tachs not at 3 grand at 60 mph just wondering if anyone has done this or heard of this. thanks billy
No offense to a Man P***ed, But are you sure he was talking of the Banjo rear ? Or could he have been talking of his Own, I have heard the Asin Women during WWII did some crazy stuf to the Ol Boys while over seas Anyways, I have NEVER heard of a BALL bearing swap to a Banjo. I dont think it could be done.
I'm pretty sure alot of guys did it for racing to reduce friction. I have a book at home showing how it was done, Just not sure which one? May be about T's though? I forget.... Do you think its a big benefit for the street?
as you probably know , where the hubs go on the axle ends there are on roller bearings . i do not know how anyone could install ball bearings there , or anywhere else in a stock `40 ford rear end or do you mean it has a quick change rear end , like a Halibrand? those have ball bearing
I think ball bearings were used in place of rollers at hubs as a way of minutely reducing rolling resistance where load capacity wasn't important on lakes cars. There were also various hub conversions done on dragsters and on circle track cars, eras spanning 1928 to well into the sixties for dragsters. There is scanty info on the circle track stuff in books like the Riley s****book, some scanty info on the dragster hubs in '60's Fawcett books. As you can see, I know very little about this, just that it happened. The most mainstream conversion was the use of 3/4 ton aftermarket bolt on spindles on the rear (and sometimes the front) in place of the p***enger roller bearing area on the axle housings...this conversion was to big double-rollers and floater axles, both for strength and safety in contact-sport racing.
Yes it was a 40 banjo and he put ball bearings to reduce friction when racing thats what he told me. Zach is right. If you find that book on how to do it please post it. Billy
I've heard of it. Plenty of material to turn down the race on the housing to make room and with everything out of the hub it's likely there is a standard size bearing that fits. I'd like to see pics if you find them, Zach.
I wish i could think where I saw it.... Maybe Ray Kun's book? I'll dig around if i have time tonight... off topic i guess?, I just bought a car on monday with the hubs converted like Bruce is talking.. floater axles and ends on a banjo rear
Found one of the Fawcett books with murky write-up on a Ch***is Research dragster hub, which I suspect is a relative of stuff under discussion. This is extracted from inadequate material...some is my hypothesis on what they must be referring to: This is circa 1960, lead photo is of a side-by -side twin Chevy powered slingshot, lying dead in the gr*** after the departure of rear hub, drum, slick, and axle end... The hubs: Ford housings, cut down Ford brakes in place. Original hub extension of axle housing is I think still in place as the support for all. There is an aluminum shell containing the ball bearing(s ?) around the axle housing hub. The back must (not adequately shown) contain a separate flange, captive within the shell, bolted to the same bolts that secure brakes so that the bearing shell cannot escape its location but is able to rotate around said hypothetical flange. Outer side of the cup carries 5 studs in Ford pattern. These take a Ford hub with snout and wheel flange cut out of a normal Ford brake drum...the hub portion slides onto the studs and secures in entirely stock fashion to the axle taper. Drum is not shown, presumably reworked to slide over the hub and studs. Since the inner rotational hub is secured positively to axle housing, this takes axle from 3/4 floating to full float, and if axle fails hub and wheel remain attached and fully rollable. Nothing to it. Any master machinest could whip one out in a couple of months...
Claimed benefits: 50% cut in rolling friction at that point from full width bearing, plus tighter location of hub. Hub cannot come off if axle fails. Vastly more compact and lighter than the 3/4 ton hardware.
Could he have been talking about any of the other bearings inside? like on the Pinion or?. some of the Halibrand qc's have 3 ball bearings stacked instead of the double row rollers on the pinion.
In the Ford rear, those bearings inside have to be loaded fairly heavily, the preload on pinion and carrier bearings, and hold against substantial axial thrust. If you hung those parts on normal rollers, I think you would need additional systems to control the parts... Hub, on the other hand, is purely rotational. I think inside any bearing drag would be trivial next to the friction from the gear contact. You should be able to lower that gear drag just by going to a less powerful engine...
Source of Ch***is Research hub info: Fawcett # 413, Griffith Borgeson, "How to Build and Race Hot Rods". Most of the Borgeson books like this have a CR chapter, so there may well be more complete info somewhere in the heap.
Ford engineering text puts total bearing and gear losses in rear end at around 10% of power going through...it would presumably be a bit more for a hypoid rear. I suspect that gear losses and losses in preloaded bearings would be the lion's share of this, and that hub bearings would be low loss since they just roll... Ford original roller bearings are huge because of design need to carry pickup trucks as well as cars...a rod could pretty obviously get by with less bearing area out there.
Here are some pictures of a ball bearing conversion for Banjo Ford rear ends manufactured by CYCLONE. As mentioned it also acted as an axle retainer.
"...#413... thats from the future.... " Yeah, and Borgeson was annoyed about having to write about the future too...he wanted to type on forever about Miller race cars, but his evil editor forced him into the glittering, dangerous future world of magnesium and torquewrenches and parachutes...
Wow...just what was missing in the coverage of the CR version, which seems very similar. Can you flesh out the retention part some more?? There is a picture of a compe***or's failed hub in the CR article...pretty sure it is a Cyclone...and cracked just like the one shown, but with great chunks missing. To get back to the now from this futuristic stuff...I think this dragster hub is very similar to a thirties hub conversion for circle track.
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