I've got an older Halibrand QC center section with '40 bells and need to "heavily" weld on '36 rear bones brackets. Anyone have any insight or better yet pic's of jigging the housing up to be welded? Years ago I made a jig for Ford 8" & 9" rears I assume the same principles apply. Since the bells have been converted to 9" bearing flanges I was hoping to use my 2" bar and outside bearing "slugs" but have no idea as to how to center, center section. Thanks!
I made spacers for the inner bearings on the housings and used the bar to keep the housings in line . I bolted the housings to the center section with nothing inside so the bar goes straight through. Make sure you have the orientation correct for pinion angle. You can tack then the 36 housings with the center section in place and welding on the bones. The bar will assure straightness of the two housings. I was using a Champ center section for my set up. The photo is shown below without the bar.
Thanks Pew, so having a junk empty QC center section would be helpful? How about just bolting the 2 bells together, with inner bearing slugs and bar installed?
I've fitted radius rod brackets to axle tubes early ford and others and never had a problem with alignment or distortion after welding! In all cases I fit the brackets to the lower half of the axle tubes tack them on whilst the radius rods are in situ , remove the rods and finish weld the brackets. I do however normalise with heat the entire weld area in a 360 degree sweep with a torch. Always works with little effort to fit up the rods once installed into the respective vehicles! Never needed to fixture up as the material thickness keeps all pieces from deflecting and normalising heat appears to also to control this! Cheers Wayne Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I made mine for putting the housing ends on. It consists of the bar, bearings and collars. I assemble it all with a small amount of preload on the bearings and rotate the shaft as I tack it all together. After 3 or 4 good tacks I weld the ends on solid. When it cools you should be able to still rotate the shaft by hand. I'm out of town for the next week. but, I will post pictures when I get back. Like Wayne said, I have never had to put one in a jig when welding brackets. I think the taper of the tubes keeps them from warping like a piece of straight tubing. By the way, I have tried just about every way I can think of to weld the ends on using the tapered tube (axle housing) for alignment. They just aren't straight enough to do that. Butt welding them is the plan. I do like your idea of 2 1/2" dia. bar but that won't fit through the housing ends if they are pocketed for seals.
Gearhead, Well your rite it can't be 2 1/2" in diameter! Built this 30 years ago with 2" Tool Bar. Have edited my above post, thanks! Not using a jig seems scary to me but maybe my mind is fixated into thinking that way after all the 8" & 9" Fords this bar has seen.
I have tried that also but they didn't seem to line up with the center housing after tacking them. I like the center housing in place with the rod keeping everything in line. I but weld the ends (Dutchman) while mounted on the tube. As noted, the tubes are not always true. Here is a stock end from a 9" housing note that the ends slips into the housing which may not be straight. I used the Dutchman butt weld with the bar. Everything stays in place as long as you do as noted above when welding the ends and brackets on.
This worked well for me. Local machine shop made a collar with a set screw that holds a carrier bearing.
Dennis "frames" here on the HAMB wanted me to post his reply for him; i remove the inner carrier race. chuck that end in my lathe. at the outer end i use a steady rest. for the outer end i have a collar with a taper inside that the steady rest runs on. the taper inside the collar fits the tube outside. i true the end. make a slight cut to true the ID. fit 9" end to this ID. remove collar. 2 round slugs and long ready bolt. clamp together. tack in 4 places and then finish weld.
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