1932 late banjo V8. I'm restoring this banjo and have discovered that the left bell is bent. There's a dent on top of the axle tube. Must have fallen on something and now it's bent. Other than that it's a lovely rust free axle with no pitting, so I'd really prefer to rescue this bell. Has anyone experience with bending these straight again? How would I go about it? Thanks Ed Twitter @edsrodshop
Hi Ed, from the photos, it looks more like it's dented and not bent. You would have to check on a lathe. Just like straightening a wishbone, I cut out a piece with a thin disc grinder to bring back the piece to its original state, and then welded it back it. Of course, when welding back on, tack it first and weld in very small sections not to warp the tube out of line. The bearing race also looks rather rusted...fine sand and see if it's ok. Patience is the name of the game. Robert ( PS...'33 & '34 tubes are the same...but you know that )
It is seriously bent. I actually found out because I had it on the lathe. Was about to turn down the race to fit a new one, but the bell was all over the place. It's bent about 7 degrees. I wonder if it can be bent back with heat rather than cutting and welding.
Got one in mind Micha? You know how hard it can be to find shops like that round here. Thanks Ed Twitter @edsrodshop
There is a pretty nice set of bells laying in a field near me. The shipping would probably be too much. There was an excellent article a while back on here on taking the dents out of a 32 front spreader bar. He straightened the bar first and then took the dents out with some pipe cut to make wedges. He used the two parts to work against each other while hammering one down on the other. Maybe some heat also.
The problem is common and the straightening needs to be done with an alignment bar, heat and the good old H-press. Take you time and bend back until the bar pulls easy through the housing. You will need to make some bushings for the alignment bar but watching your work I would guess that would be easy for you. We have shop in LA that could do it for you but give it a go. The dent may pull back out but if you want it perfect. Cut it out, straighten and weld. Keep the alignment bar in the housing the whole time you are welding. Lynn
There is a shop in my town that could do it. They straightend a Torque tube for me once But really any shop that does drivelines could do it They use heat to get it back to shape But if you have a lathe you can do it by yourself
Sounds like the big bend needs to be fixed in a press. But as for that little dent, I'd drill a 3/8" hole opposite of it and poke through with a long rod. May need to heat the dent, then pick it out from inside by hammering on the opposite end of the rod. Then you only have a 3/8" hole to weld up.
I think it's the little dent that's causing the bell to be bent. The dent was dented cold so I'm going to attempt to remove the dent cold too. That might bring it back straighter. Twitter @edsrodshop
Doug Lindow in California near Los Alamitos did my axle housing some years back and told me the reason why some of them were bend is because when people would work on their car for what ever reason they would put jack stands under these axle housing and would sag from the weight of the car. Mine were bend and he had to put them on his late and using a torch heating them and straigtening them. Frenchy
This one seems to be directly under the frame rail. I'd bet it hit a really big bump with lots of weight on board.
I once welded the ends of a 32 axle onto a cut down Pilot axle. You could use a similar technique to get that one up and running again. Here's what I would do. It may not be everybody's cup -o -tea but I think it would work. Cut the axle straight through where it is bent. Tackle each side individually and straighten out the dent. Assemble that one side of the axle and making sure the shaft is straight, offer the bell parts together. I made a bush from sheetmetal to locate the end in line with the shaft. Start tacking the parts together making sure the shaft rotates freely at all times during the welding to indicate the housing is straight. That's what I did to the axle in Old Rusty, (except I was welding the 32 ends to the Pilot bells) and it's been on the road 10 years now. Mart.
Well I'm nearly there. I made a special tool and pulled out the dent. Took 4 inches of driveshaft and drilled a hole through it and tapped it. Then I drilled a hole in a 1/2" plate. I drilled a hole in the middle of the dent and bolted my tools to the inside and outside of the dent. After heating around the dent it pulled out. I had noticed the dent had caused the sides of the bell to bellow out a bit. Pulling out the dent straightened the bell almost completely. Tomorrow I'm going to put it on the press to try to straighten the last 1/32" which it's off by. Twitter @edsrodshop
No I really didn't want to go down that road. I'll probably be chroming this bell so it needs to be nice. Twitter @edsrodshop
Sounds like you are nearly done...but if you can find a source, huge ball bearings are a big help in straightening stuff. I found one exactly the ID of a '32 Ford steering tube...makes getting rid of the dents nearly instant. I'm always looking for round pieces of scrap anything when shopping at the scrap mall...
I got the new ones I have from a surplus tools place that comes up all the time on Garage journal, and I collect ones that I find while walking the dog (FWD drive U-joint balls ejected by failures, I think), anything at junkyard, etc. Bits of solid rod and such are also helpful. So far, the steering tube one is the biggest I have...I guess I need friends who work with heavy engineering stuff. There are some fair sized ones on Amazon new. I think a place like MSC Industrial would likely have anything...a quick look took me to a 2" one...but that's $26! The right one would be worth some money, though, when working a '32 part...
Ball mills (mines use ball mills to crush ore) use big steel balls 2" -3" all different sizes, they haul them in with semi trucks. Chris
Cool. I lack good industrial scrounging opportunities here. Hard core white collar area, just a dormitory for Wall Street. My collection of larger sizes is so pathetically small they all have names and their birthdays are celebrated. They allow precision violence, and I think a real collection would allow matching about any size of tubular object imaginable.
The Jalopy Journal
