Suppose I needed some shock mounts welded to the bells on my rear end. (banjo) Should I be worried about warping it or is that only a big concern for the newer stuff like the 9"? The mount won't be much more than a threaded bung but the way I hear some people talk if I spilled hot coffee on it I'm screwed - it is now most likely warped junk. Well?
Study the construction of a Ford axle bell. Peer into a disassembled 9". Laugh hysterically at the silly modern paper towel roll construction. Plug in welder. Be thankful you've chosen a better decade to live in.
Look at T buckets, Deuces, and at after market rears. There are many brackets wekded to them. Use the usual precautions, and welkd away. As in any weld, use only sufficient heat for penetration. Good luck.
Well, what if this question had been posed about that 9"? What would the answer have been then? I'll be doing this to a 9" sometime soon. On the 8"er in Clarence we welded the leaf spring "pads" to the housing, being sort of careful about not doing too much at a time. Did we do wrong? A couple of years later I replaced all the bearings & seals when one of the seals started leaking. Did our welding maybe cause the seal to fail? Or do you suppose that the seal was nearly worn out anyways?
I was always taught not to weld to rear ends that are****embled. Something about the arc grounding out through the rollers... ? Jay
[ QUOTE ] Something about the arc grounding out through the rollers... [/ QUOTE ] If you attatch the ground cable to the axle itself,like a wheel stud or hub,then all the electricity has to go through the bearings to get to the housing. If you attatch the ground cable to the housing,it shouldn't be a problem.
to answer the 9 in question...we welded shock mounts right to the rearend of a 50 ford for my t....and that thing rode kinda rough because of the lack of leafs for the cool value..and it was fine...i havent had problems.
9"=don't worry about a couple of shock mounts. now if you was startin from scratch and weldin on a bunch o*****, it is worth checking the alingment. fwiw, the axle housing can actually handle quite a bit of misalingment, many times rear axle housings can have a visible amount of negative camber built in when viewed from the rear.
The Jalopy Journal
