Technical Speedway forged beam axle

That's what I was thinking, a big twist before it broke. I doubt that econo disc brake could load it that hard.

 

They are supposed to be able to do this (according to Ford)

 

I could probably come up with a scenario that the axle snapping off would make it worse, but the truth is that if you hit something hard enough to snap a cast axle or bend a forged axle you are pretty much through dealing anyway. I doubt that there are more than a handful of fellas on here that have ever straightened a bent forged axle and used it again anyway.

Where a bad cast axle becomes scary for me is when one snaps under normal use. Like I mentioned earlier a good casting should hold up under normal driving. Sometimes they come from the factory with a fissure and snap off whenever no one is prepared. 70-80 mph and a snapped axle can be a pretty scary proposition. I know that I have a tendency to take a pretty lackadaisical approach to safety a lot of the time, but endos just are not optimal.

 

That axle broke after the car ( hi boy Model A Coupe) ran off the side of I39 into a soft ditch, there was no impact with anything. But yes a forged axle would have bent too I'm sure. And I've seen SuperBell axles take an impact and bend without breaking too.

 

Usually in a break like that there is evidence left in the break itself that tells the tale of what happened. It may have been a porous casting, leaving a weak spot; or there may have been an inclusion in the casting, also leaving a weak spot (this can happen with forging too); it may have been cracked for some time and finally exceeded the number of cycles needed to cause a catastrophic failure, it could have been the result of an accident. In the case of that particular failure the pictures don't really show what you need to see to tell what happened.

Any metal part forged or cast, has a limit to the number of cycles it can take before failure occurs. By cycles, I mean the flexing of the part from it's shape at rest. As an example, take a paper clip and bend it, then bend it back, and keep doing that until it eventually breaks. Obviously, a forged part can withstand more cycles than a cast part, but eventually it will fail too. It is the job of the engineers to determine the number of cycles the part can withstand, and ensure that in a critical part like an axle the number of cycles required to cause a failure is far higher than would be experienced in any foreseeable use. If a cast axle is properly engineered and produced, there is no reason it should fail in use. Manufacturing and/or selling axles that can break under normal use would make a company liable for the damages, and in a litigious society like the one we have today it would be insane for any company to do that. I would bet that Bell has all the engineering records they need to prove that their axles are properly engineered and designed to withstand any normal usage on a car. Crashing the car into an immovable object isn't considered normal usage.

 

Don't believe everything you are told. A friend of mine bought a super bell axle about ten years ago and on the first trip around the block ran into the ditch and broke the axle. Pete and Jakes inspected the axle and said the axle wasn't at fault and didn't offer to replace it. They can and do break.

 

Couple questions on the above post: Was that an original SB - which I believe is a cast axle? Secondly, did SB supply/produce it with the drilled holes? The second question is very important - because it appears that it failed right in the middle of a drilled hole . . . . so, whose hole was it?

 

Just got a forged speedway axle and the quality looks top notch to me, price was also very good. Will be ordering one to keep in stock for the next project.

 

I have a super bell in my coupe. I WAS thinking about drilling it. This changes my mind. Thanks for posting.

 

Note that the questions were never answered. The story isn't plausible.

 

It happened. The guy that it happened to died last year of cancer and I haven't had time to verify with his son that he bought the axle already drilled and chromed. Life is busy these days.

 

Adding to Blues4U's post. If the steel, and that's steel only, is sized and forged correctly, the non-deforming (lower elastic) loads like the road bump fatigue ones, plot out Below the Endurance Limit, and it does not fail. This scenario happens when well below the permanent-deforming region of loads.

 

The Super Bell dropped axle is available with the holes and chrome from P&J.
Can't say if that particular axle came that way or not.

Phil

 

I recently helped a man who owned a Henry bodied deuce highboy roadster I built back in 85 that had a Super Bell tube axle with cast ends that broke thru the right kingpin boss when he hit a pothole and the wheel came off and wrapped around into the body. Fortunately he was only going about 25 when this happened. The axle was chrome. In Super Bells defense the car had about 150 K on it and Super Bell did help out the man with a new axle and a few other parts to fix the car at a discount.

 

The broken axle pictured above was on it's first trip around the block when something caused the 32 roadster to go into the ditch and hit hard breaking the axle. I was just taking issue with the comment that Jason at Pete and Jakes is said to have claimed nobody had ever broken one and this axle was taken to them to examine after the wreck to determine if it was faulty. They claimed it wasn't and made no offer to replace it. I have six super bell axles under my cars today and at least two of them are drilled. If god forbid, I wreck one of them hard enough, the axle can break. I've recently switched to using original 32 heavy axles with an Okie Joe 5 inch drop just because they look so cool.