TECH: cheap open drive conversion on early banjo

i had a few people ask me to post my open drive conversion up so here it is. this is my roomate doing the actual work but ill do my best to describe it. this would be for someone with more time than money. speedway sells a kit but its almost 300 dollars this process uses stock ford parts and a peice of 1/2 steel plate. i got about 35 dollars into this.

youll need:

-1935-3*?? ford 1 1/2 ton mid-driveshaft yoke
-junk torque tube end (last 3 inches or so)
-skf seal at napa part number 17106
-a lathe
-grinder
-welder
-calipers and measuring tape
-and something to cut through the 1/2 plate.

first thing you will need to do is clean up slip part of the yoke, it needs to be centered in the lathe because it needs to seal perfectly. it also needs to be 1.709 inches for the seal.





now you will need to drill a hole to mount it to the shaft.



measure the distance to the bolt and leave room for the seal.


scribe and cut out a piece of the plate to outside diameter to the tube. grind it to near the scribe line enough to get a good start in the lathe.


measure inside diameter of the tube, and place steel in lathe. cut to size inward about 3/16ths of an inch.



now flip it over and cut the outer edge to size.



place cap in top of tube after facing off tube, and measure amount to be cut down.




cut down the tube, i wanted mine to be slightly less than 2 1/4 inch to give room for seal and bolt.


champher edges a bit, place in lathe and either turn by hand or put on granny gear, and weld seam



measure seal, you will want the hole to be slightly smaller.



place part in lathe for hole cut, and check for center.



now you are ready for assembly!

 

finished 34 rear axle.

 

cool! thanks

 

Very nice. It is always good to see how others attack the same problem. Here is the one I did.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=324073&highlight=conversion

 

that rules, nice work!

 

Nice. I'm going to be attempting this myself.

 

yeah its cheap all right. I'll just run out and buy a lathe to save a buck.

 

actually that lathe cost 200 dollars. its from the 1930s, used to run off a steam engine, haha still works and even if you bought the lathe youd still be getting it cheaper then buying a kit!

 

I stand corrected

 

In case others are searchiing for info, Smokey's tech is in this thread.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=187

Might as well get as many in one searchable thread as we can!

 

funny thing is, my buddy/roomate who did the work has a shop called "smokies custom auto service".

 

Awesome tech! Between you and Tman, I'm sure I can do my own open drive. Thanks guys!

 

Very nice tech,

on another note and not to take away from this post, but are the open drive banjos really that hard to find?

JEFF

 

yeah, i think they only made them for 3 years, and only in trucks. 46-48.

 

I had the closed banjo so I didnt even bother to look. Had time and some of these threads to look at.

 

thats cool, i just always wondered.

And i should go pick up the 3 that i know about that are super cheap?

 

The later open drive banjos aren't splined, they are tapered with a keyway. When i do my open drive i will take a splined coupler and machine out the tapered yoke and weld in the coupler, you will need to put in a freeze plug or weld a cap on the end to prevent oil seepage. The rest of the conversion is the same. I do rember seeing somewhere that there is a 70's ford four wheel drive front yoke with the same splines as the banjo pinion, i think it was 28.00.

 

Duh!?

 

three times yes.

 

Very awesome tech!! This needs to be put in the tech section!!

 

Nice work.

 

Nice job. I helped my brother-in-law do an open drive conversion using my lathe. Seems like everyone's home brew version is slightly different.

Thanks for taking the time to post pics.

Neal

 

Great tech, and thanks Tman for the other threads.

 

Yes, I like comparing. You learn something new each time someone posts one up!

Hi Tom!

 

i was thinking, do you think i need to put a breather onto the top of the conversion now that it has a seal on it?

 

Yes, the Hot Rod works guys discussed this in one of the conversion threads. I think I am going to use a breather off a 9" in an axle tube.

 

so i ran into an issue actually with this yoke...... they dont make the bearing anymore! DOH! and there wasnt even one that was close enough. so what we had to do was grind off the ears for the old bearing and then lathe em off smooth, then cut a groove in the middle for the base of a newer style standard bearing(but not all the way because it needs the one piece to center the yoke) then my roomate pressed in the yoke and welded it in. so now i gotta grind it down make it look pretty(he said it was a bitch to weld in such a small space with a 220 mig) and it should be all good to go and get balanced. the new yoke cost me 75. so im still WAY far away from the 300 for the kit.

 

thanks for the update ....by bearing do you mean the u-joint?

 

Nice tech thread.

I did a very similar conversion. The only problem is with the through bolt that holds the yoke onto the pinion spline. I keep shearing them off. As you know it's only there to stop the yoke sliding forward. I think there may be a bit of freeplay in the spline (6 spline) and not an equivalent amount of room in the bolt hole. Over time it works on the bolt and eventually breaks it.

I think over-sizing the hole in the spline might fix it but it'll be coming out soon to be replaced by something much nicer.

Pete

 

Excellent Tman, I will build off of your idea when I do mine