Whoa nelly!! did that cause you to swerve the hellover? Look to be a failure in welds, because of shortening the axle, right?
It's in the natural order of things Don...first you wear the front axle out then you wipe the rear one out That*****s though. What were you doing at the time?
Correct, weld failure where the housing was narrowed. After driving around on the*****ty roads of North County San Diego, I noticed a puddle of gear oil under the car when it was parked. A closr inspection revealed a crack that went almost all the way around the weld. It was being held on by about 1.5". Discretion prevailed and I called AAA for a 102 mile trip back to my shop Sunday afternoon. Today when I pulled the car out of the shop to turn it around it broke the rest of the way. It's all apart now. It'll get Tig welded back together with some gusseting to prevent further failure.
you gatta quit doing those burnouts don! at least it's metal and can be fixed. at least it happened before ego-rama! jerry
Tough break, in more ways than one. You must have roads like ours. I broke a front coil in my pickup. Nutz
That might have happened at speed on the drag strip in AZ if... So many what-if's in life add up to being just ok, I guess. Good thing you noticed it.
Don, does the word EXORCISM mean anything? That car is possessed. First it runs you over and now this. Just a thought. (or a conspiracy theory) Hope you're feeling better. Can't wait to see you finish Ego Rama. Eric =========================================================== 49 Studebaker P/U
Holy*****! I hadda 57 chevy rear axle housing do the same thing. Had a little too much happy juice and thought it would be cool to do a burn-out across a speed bump with my ol' 57 belair. Craaaaaaaack! It's good it didn't happen to you 300 miles from home or in the middle of ego-rama....
designed to fail or what? looks like NO penetration in that weld. Paul ......... oh yeah, good for you to catch it before it fell apart on the street! looks like a pretty simple fix.
Wow Don, that's pretty scary looking. Glad it happened where you found it and not while on the road or worse. It appears to be pretty poor weld penetration. A good welder can fix it, then you'll be good as new. Glad to see you out running around, haven't seen you much on here lately.
With the Road Trip season approaching, most of us probably ought to climb under our cars for a check of whatever last season left us. Someone upstairs is looking out for you Don, and it's a good wakeup call for the rest of us to look things over, grease the wheelbearings, fill the fluids, etc.
Holy Smokes Don! That's crazy, at least you caught it in time and it didn't happen on the street or under power. I'm really suprised considering you have a four bar setup.
[ QUOTE ] you've got non-trianglulated ladder bars on that thing don't you? [/ QUOTE ] TCI 4 bar with a panhard bar. It's just the result of a lot of driving on*****py roads and very poor weld penetration.
A close call indeed. I'm curious though, I thought most rear axles were narrowed out near the ends. Where it's broken is where the factory tube to banjo weld is, isn't it? Color me confused.
Only one side was cut and***** welded to narrow the housing. I'd say the blame rests entirely on the poor weld penetration.
Wow Don, The proof is in the pudding, err, in your case, that last picture. Even I weld better than that. Well, maybe....
ouch, hopefully the four bar is welded on better than that. it would be scary to lose the bars from one side while on the road. should be a easy fix, and thank god you caught it. i think i will check all my rear end welds tomorow.
DRD, bummer man. My brother had that happen to a narrowed rear he purchased from someone else. Same thing, no penetration in the weld. After going through that fiasco, we've come up with some "insurance" against that from happening again on all the narrowed axle housings we've done ourselves since... After welding the housing solid, grind a 1" area of the bead smooth and weld in a 1"x3" piece of 3/8" plate steel solid. Do this 3 more times per side (top, bottom, front, back) and you've got bulletproof housings, sort of. Same concept worked on my former Daily Driver Honda Civic. With 182hp @ the front wheels, busted**** motor mounts, a solid hub 3-puck race clutch, grippy tires, no flex pipe in the exhaust, and a heavy right foot I was breaking my exhaust pipe once every few weeks after a 7,000rpm launch on the street or track. We did the same "bracing", if you will, to the exhaust pipe right above the "break" and it never broke again. Hmm...maybe a Tech-o-Matic thing there? Maybe not, what am I talking about, it's 4:00am!!!
Don,I`m glad to see that you got away without major damage to yourself or the coupe.I narrowed a 9" axle a while ago for my old `40 coupe and whilst I had the axle resplined I did the casing myself.I read lots on how you have to keep the casing exactly suare and avoid warping during welding etc, and to put a steel bar through the full casing through the bearings to keep it all lined up.This seemed to expensive and to much trouble, so I had a sleeve machined about 6" in length, with a chamfered edge on each end that was a press fit into the axle casing tube.I drove the sleeve into one side and spot welded it into place via a 1/4" hole drilled previousley in the casing, this held the tube in the right place whist fitting it into the other side.The cut ends of the casing had been V`ed so that when they were presented they were ready for welding with maximum penetration.The actual welding was done by a mate of mine who has got a high powered mig plant and care was taken to move around the joint to avoid localised heat build up. This gave me a strong, straight axle with the benefit of "belt and braces"(belt and suspenders to you):]and with the 4.11 gears it ran it saw plenty of abuse.I think I`m right in thinking that a 4 bar set up imparts more load into the casing at the point of your break due to the effects of pinion climb, or more precesly the inabilaty for this as the 4 bar holds the pinion at a fixed plane whereas an axle on say, leaf springs can "rotate" slightly and absorb the stress.Alright for street type driving but I`d sure look at something a bit stronger than a straight forward***** weld on such a stressed area, if you plan on racing. Good luck with it and keep us posted,
First of all, Don I'm glad you spotted this "problem" in time. The next thought that goes through my mind, is for those that are using "split wishbones" (solidly afixed to the axle) and have narrowed rear axles, BETTER READ THIS THREAD VERY CAREFULLY!! 4 bars allow the axle to "move" without placing as much strain on the axle tube, where solid wishbones place BIG TIME strain on any of the welds. Like C9, I'm wondering if the bearing retainer had been "machined" (cut) off; the axle tube shortened, (at the end) and the bearing retainer replaced, if this would avoid the joint problems? I agree, this thread should be placed along side the "split wish bone" one.
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