Did a search couldnt find much. Im getting ready to do the rear suspension on my 30 sedan. Have a gm 10 bolt rear that I need to weld the center mount for a watts link to. Will I be able to weld the tab to the top of the cast housing? I dont know if its steel or iron. Any other ideas? maybe just go with a panard bar? Thanks for any input.
I would fabricate a bracket that bolts through the rear cover bolts before I welded a bracket to the cast iron. Good luck with whatever way you go
Cast steel, weld away! I'd look at quite a few first and make sure you had a good design and that your tab spread the load enough not to cause undo stress to the welded area first though.
X2. You can weld to the center section, no problem. The issue is being sure not to distort the bearing seats from the heat.
a decent welder can do it. you have to be careful about too much heat warping the housing preheating cast makes for a better weld. i know it wouldb hard to put a axle housing in an oven but u might have a way. it can be done & a good welder can do yours.
This is how we do them for Watts on a GM rear. I used tube on mine because I had plenty room. Could used different materials depending on your needs. Also could make it alot tighter fitting. Still allows you to remove he cover and not as much chance of warping something. Good luck.
Yes, but, in my opinion it should be a plate that is "sandwiched" between the housing and the cover, not added onto the outside of the cover flange. So, it would be, in effect, a ring shaped plate. Ray
I like lowburbans way of doing it. I found a ring gear spacer, It looks like it goes between the housing and cover to allow for bigger gears, im thinking i could get away with using that just weld my tab to the top of it and grind and smooth it out?
A ring gear spacer is usually used to put a lower gear in a high gear carrier. I don't think I've ever heard of needing extra space between the cover and the gear.
That's how the mini truck guys do it. They have a thick steel plate that bolts on between the pumpkin and the cover and they weld to that.
Hey.. I have welded a triangulated upper link fittings to the center cast.. and did'nt think before that is this a good idea. I gave them a good amps with welding. But there they are. Can I trust them?
Triangulated upper bars and leafs springs is going to bind up somewhere. With leafs you really dont need the upper bars anyway and if your having spring wrap issues there are much better ways of fixing it. As for welding on a center section, I won't and don't, however there are some that do it with no ill effects but I'm not brave enough to try it and not lucky enough to get away with it.
Maybe consider a Mumford Link it only attaches to the ends of the axle tube and gives a nice low roll center
No no..I took the leaf springs away.. the upper bars were not for leaf wrap. Leafs are changed with lover bars now. triangulated 4 link or somethng to bag the rear end.
Yep, I think factory tubes are plug welded and LOTS of drag cars, that run 12 bolts, have the tubes completely welded to the housing to keep the tubes from breaking loose and rotating in the housing.
Speedway sells a Panard bar bracket that clamps onto the axle tube. If you don't like Speedways design, there are a bunch of other clamp-on axle tube brackets for Panard bars on eBay.
That bracket scares me. Seems the force on a car trying to push side to side would eventualy (imediatly?) slide that bracket on the tube.
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