I need some input. I have a 41-48 banjo rear on my model A (not sure of the exact year) the pinion shaft from the rear end slides into the yoke on the driveshaft. Closed driveshaft. My problem is the pin that is supposed to be there. I don't have the original pin for this location so I have been using bolts. I have broke 3 of them now. Two were grade 8 and one regular. This is just from normal driving no burnouts or stress testing. Anyone have any ideas where I can get the right pin or does this pin even need to be there. I hope I explained this ok. Motor is a 51 Merc slightly built, but as I said before I am not hard on the car. Any help would be appreciated.
It sounds like you might have some play in the splines. There should not be any load on the bolt or pin, causing it to break. I'd check that.
There is an ever so slight amount of play, I mean barely. Is the pin necessary in the current configuration due to the driveshaft not being in it's original use? thanks gimpyshotrods
The pin is there to do nothing more than keep the two pieces together, otherwise they would slide back-and-forth against each other, until one gave up and failed. It needs to be there. Even a small amount of play can result in a snapped bolt or pin, as you have seen. The splines are supposed to be doing all of the work, but now some of the load is being transferred to the bolt. Need to get the play out of there. You might be able to get away with putting a spring steel roll pin in there, but I am dubious. It would bend under the force of the movement of the two parts in relation to each other. But then again, you'd have those two parts beating each other up. Any oldsters out there have a back-in-the-day field fix for this?
Stop driving it and check the pinion nuts right now. You might just save yourself alot of headache. They are right about it moving, but the next question is where. In a Banjo the only place to move is the pinion back and forth in the housing, or the trans has main bearing issues or the front bearing retainer is loose. Either way check them now before it costs you alot more. Good luck, Tim
...seems to me I got some nos Ford pins from Joblot in Queens, NY. The pin has a flat head on one side that sits in the countersink....the pin is longer than the diameter of the coupler and the other end gets peened over like a rivet..I used a solid block of steel (piece of railroad track) to rest it on and smashed the end over with a bfh...but that was out of the car. You might be able to do it in the car with an air hammer but you still need to back up the rivet (pin) with something. ..if you've got significant play in the splines you may need to address that first. .
Check your bearing inside the torque tube. I had a similar issue because of that.. heres the thread. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=309170&highlight=torque+tube+8ba
Alright. I got everything apart and found out I was wrong. There is no movement between the splines on the pinion on the rear axle and the coupler on the driveshaft. Everything there is tight. I took a look at the bearing in the front of the torque tube and I think that may be it. One of the rollers on the bearing is broke so I am going to replace the driveshaft front bearing, bearing sleeve, front bearing seal and buy stock pins for the coupler at the rear. I still have one question. I went ahead and took the universal joint off of my transmission (35 Ford 3 speed). I know there is supposed to be some up and down movement in the joints, but can anyone tell me if there is supposed to be any side to side movement or are these suppose to be up and down only? (if that makes sense) I guess I mean instead pivoting on the bushing type bearings (normal I think), but are they supposed to also move side to side? If so I will go ahead and replace the universal joint while everything is apart.
I've had a similar problem with my AV8 roadster. It is not fun to drop the whole rear axle just to change that stupid pin. I broke two bolts... then put a correct pin in there peened the end and tacked both sides to the coupler just for good measure. So far so good... now that I talked about it, it'll probably break tomorrow...' On the plus side, I'm getting pretty good at yanking and installed the rear in this thing. Last time I had it out fixed and back in in a little over an hour!
Tim, how could the trans have anything to do with this problem? The driveshaft is free to slide in the U-joint.
Haha, yeah tell me about it. I just broke my 3rd bolt. Getting pretty good at changing them. Actually what you did entered my mind yesterday. I may just do that myself! At least it's nice to know someone else has been there!
Hahaha, it's still a pain in the *** though. The worst part is bleeding the brakes. Regarding the tacks, I figured if it breaks on both sides, at least it won't be able to fall out of there and grind away the torque tube, (a sound you're probably quite familiar with by now!) the shaft may just slide forward and bump the Ujoint bolt in the back of the trans. Which will be my clue to get to a garage and fix it! hehe... I think I may just have a little slop in the splines, if I break this current pin, I'm gonna make a new driveshaft with a nice tight coupler. Oh, BTW, those Ujoints do slide side to side, just make sure there's no slop or wear in the bushings. Best of luck!
Yeah, no kidding. I did it about 4 or 5 times and I started to get pretty good at it too, except for one time I was unbolting the rear end from the torque tube and forgot to secure the spring. The rear end came loose and the heavy spring whacked me right on the temple!! I saw stars after that I would tie the spring to the rear cross member.
OLLIN, did you get your problem fixed? I am also starting to suspect that my driveshaft may be the culprit.
yeah, that was the problem. Once I put the bearing and seals in properly, and rotated the torque tube so the oiling hole was in the correct spot that solved it, problem gone. It caused the u-joint to go out, and broke the grade 8 bolts at the rear coupler. Those bearings keep everything aligned inside the torque tube, In mine, there must have been too much slop so it was hitting the housing and caused it to break eventually.
Oh, and I found a new driveshaft and cut it down to the right length and had it resplined by an oldtimer. It came out sweet. There's threads on here about welding 2 peices of driveshaft together and some guys swear by it etc.. I just figured cutting one down would be the best bet and it would stay balanced that way.
I came up with another 33-34 driveshaft that I am having shortened right now. Should be ready to go tomorrow. Joblot order in today. Hopefully back on the road by the weekend.!
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