So tonight I have been disassembling a 32 Ford front axle, bones, spring perch drum to drum. Many years ago (about 40) all this stuff was burnt pretty damn bad, ruined the frame, collapsed the springs. Well I figured if anything the axle would be fine, they take tons of heat to get dropped and then maybe the wishbones. Well in the last 6 months I've completely stripped almost 20 early Ford straight axle assemblies including 2 other 32 Ford front ends, but this one has been complete hell, throwing heat to it and everything like usual and its just being a pain, but that's not so much a concern, I still lack the spring perches and king pins and the bolt that goes threw the king pins. Anyways after all that heat I'm wondering about the strength of the wishbones. Their pretty thick, seems like they could take, you can weld them. Not to mention their unsplit so I'm dying to save them. With that said the main point of this rant, wishbones safe to use?
I know I'll catch some crap for this,... But you might want to have them Magna-fluxed to look for cracks and fracturing,... If they cooled slowly, all is cool,... if they were quenched with water... You might have a problem. As much as Deuce bones go for now a days,.... it might be money well spent.
that must have been a hot fire. i lost my shop and 3 cars, tools, hardware, parts, and best show and tell goodies. that fire was electrical, no clue why, but the heat mainly stayed up high. things on the floor were mostly salvageable. one car that was mostly wood, a 30 packard, was shot. but the fords, a 29 roadster, and 30 pickup were mostly steel, and certainly dont look to good, but they are ok. we pickled the motors using the starter motors, and the body panels do not feel warped... the block sanding will tell!. sorry for the drift, but my point is if your fire even melted leaf springs, there was some changes in the metal i would guess. axle should be tough, but hollow wish bone is rusting inside as we speak, and weak?
If a car burns outside it is often salvageable or at least parts off it can be reused. If a car burns in a garage it is usually so badly damaged by heat that it is scrap. It sounds like your axle was subject to such intense heat. I don't know if an axle is ok to reuse, but from what you said the springs, frame, etc were a writeoff.
Well the wishbones aren't really in the best condition, their pretty heavy pitted towards the ends near the ball but I gotta admit, a friend of mine donated all this to me I guess you could say so I'm not going to lose much, but the bones are look fixable if the heat hasn't ruined them . I have seen the cowl off this 32 it also was offered to me and I left it, it was sooooooo warped, bad enough that I collect 32 Ford stuff and left it there, that bad
What kind of steel is this axle made of, low carbon, medium carbon, high carbon? If you can heat it red hot to reshape it without any post heat treating and it remains strong enough to use, a fire, even if it melted springs, might allow it to slump, but it won't ruin the steel. Also if you can heat it red hot, reshape it and not have to reheat treat it, quenching it with a firehose won't fracture it either. edit: One thing to remember about Henry Ford, he was to cheap to use tool steel if a lessor material would get the job done!
Just ask Bruce Lancaster about Ford steel. Henry didn't cheap out on his steel materials. That's why there are so many of these old Fords still around.
I would not worry too much about the yolks ( ends?) of the wish bones they are forged. As long as they were not quenched with cold water of course. I would be concerned about the body (tubes) of the wish bones, they are just sheet metal tubing. Like Harm said you should have it all magna-fluxed, and tossing the "free" bones would be a good idea. I like free as much as anyone and I am a cheap bastard, but in my experience cheap and safe is way better then free and disabled.
Mr Ford produced a good product as cheaply as he could. Not likely that he used tool steel but he did use good steel in his axles. I doubt that any of us will know the true makeup of the material used and I don't believe that it is published anywhere. I do know that they were timex axles, they would "take a lickin' and keep on tickin'." I suppose that if magna fluxing was not good enough for the OP to decide a Rockwell hardness test would be in order. Ok I am getting a little extreme today. I have no way of knowing how much heat the axle took, I do imagine that it was not convection oven heat, as in even heat all around so a good test of the damage to the axle may be just as visual, look and see of the axle is warped. I also think that if I had another axle with a better pedigree I would probably use it instead and keep this one for emergency use.
I always liked the sign that hung in the kitchen of the local "In and Out", "If in doubt, throw it out". Might apply here. Charlie Stephens
Somewhere on here I posted a recipe for alloys and carbon in Ford EE steel (look at recesses on axle ends...one of the 4 will show EE forged into it), the general family of Ford spec steels V8 axles were forged from. There were several EE Electric furnace steels and I don't know exactly which was used for axles. I also posted one of the heat treatment schedules used on EE forgings...of course the heat treatment is gone from the most critical part on axles that have been dropped, but you don't see them braking... The chart of Ford steels shows only a couple of SAE ones, as Ford was the industry leader in the technologies of metallurgy, casting, and forging, and used his own steels not just for parts but for tooling...
After it shattered in the first pothole, at least the shards could be reused for the proper purpose of their steel...
We'll I probably wont use the bones, the axle is also bent but i don't whether front heat or abuse, I have a 160 ton press, if it can with stand some of the pressure to straighten it, then I'll go from there. I'm not hard up for the 32 axles I have a few so, its not big deal either way but time will tell once I get this thing apart.
You guys don't know much about tool steel do you? Have you ever heard of 4140, that is one type of tool steel? It would make a fabulous axle, but more expensive than Henry Ford would use in that application. I still make the point that the steel in that axle can stand to be hot to the point of drooping, chilled with a flood of cold water and not lose its strength, it might be warped but not weak or brittle!
The notion that Henry 'skimped' on structural steel is asinine. EE steel is almost identical to AISI 1038; a damn good product, equal to the task Henry required. "Tool steel" axles? Seriously? Tool steel is characterized by high carbon, generally .50 or higher, whereas EE steel generally had carbon content of .35-.40 (medium carbon). You do realize that, while carbon increases hardness, it also decreases ductility, right? In the case of an axle, ductility (ability to deform under tensile stress) is much preferred over hardness.
And 4140 is not tool steel. It is a medium-carbon steel with a carbon content comparable to the EE steel Henry used. Primary difference between the two is the addition of chromium and molybdenum in 4140.
I don't care what steel you use, From a super heated condition to a cold water quench can make it brittle,... You can super heat a ford axle and re-shape it, and let it air cool with no loss of integrity. And as far as Ford Steel is concerned, It was the best metallurgical steel you you could find for the job,... That's why he started making his own at the Rouge Plant ........ Please note the object lesson below.
Old Henry steel is the best damn stuff I've ever seen. I don't think he cheaped out when he built his own damn steel plant. That's not a way to get cheap, that's a way to control your quality.
I was reading AlloyArtifacts and one of the wrench manufacturing companys used Ford axles ONLY to make their wrenches
These axles are forgings,.. and not hardened you can heat the snot out of them, and they loose no integrity if they Air Cool....
This is what I'm trying to say, it is not tool steel so it can't get hard and or brittle by quenching. By the way, gwhite, granted 4140 is a medium carbon steel, but the addition of molybdenum makes it heat treat quite well so it is a tool steel. I've worked many years as a tool maker, I've built a lot of tools and tooling out of 4140, it is tougher than hell at about 50 Rc hardness, and makes a great bending/forming die at a reasonable price.
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