Hot Rods Welding on banjo

I want to move my shocks inboard I now have rear shock mounts bolted to my '47
Ford rear end with brackets but the angle is not good
How thin is the housing on the banjos and can I weld a shock mount there
or will the up and down forces break through the metal ?? Thanks

 

Not sure I understand your question. Do you mean welding in the axle housings or on the gear housing? the axle tubes are intended to be welded with spring mounts, Just be sure to spread the weld over a decent area of the housing. You can see in this photo the wall thickness is a strong 3/16".

 

You can weld on your banjo, but you will have to re tune it.

 

Similar question.
Is the banjo gear housing thick enough to weld a heavy panhard bar brkt?

 

Probably thick enough to weld a bracket on but it might be better to fab a bracket that bolted on with the "bell" bolts.

 

How do can you tell if a banjo is out of tune?..............by the sound it makes when it hits the Accordions in the dumpster

 

Petejoe, I'd say its thick enough to weld to. There was a company years ago that made post hole augers out of old Ford banjo rears and they welded brackets onto the banjos. Just be careful welding so you don't warp anything.

 

I would be cautions on welding to the housing. In building my Mysterion clone I welded in the filler plug hole in the housing and drilled a hidden threaded bung hole in front near the pinion boss. The metal there was probably 1/8" thick, only took one pipe thread for the 3/8th inch pipe plug (bottom half of the hole in pic below, you can't see the thinness. The metal is pretty thin. You could make a steel plate bracket that is held on by the banjo bell bolts but you will have to pay special attention to seal those bolt holes from lubricant leakage since you can't use the special sealing Bolts Henry designed for that spot.

 

You’re scaring me Willy36.
Running a good bead on 1/8” material is sketchy at best. I ran one on a brkt attached to the bolts but wasn’t happy with it.
Probably best to run a multi pass instead to assure I won’t be burning through.

 

Do you know the difference between a banjo and a lawn mower?


You can tune a lawn mower.

 

What is my favorite banjo song? . . . . . . . You are listening to it right now!

 

35-36 Fords had the radius rod brackets welded to the housings from the factory,so why not.

 

You can weld anything to just about anything - depending on how good of a welder you are!

Welding on the Housings (Not talking about the banjo carrier itself):

When you start welding brackets onto steel housings - especially ones that aren't 360 degrees, then the heat and the bead you lay down will tend to "draw" the housing in the direction of the weld . . . which usually means the housing ends are no longer in alignment with the centerline of the axle. This is what welds do - they shrink and they pull the underlying material. Even really thick plates will warp when you run a good bead down the middle of them.

Brackets like shock mounts, panhard bar mounts, etc - usually are welded on less than 1/2 the circumference of the housing . . . so this is where you can get into trouble. With careful welding procedures, slow cooling, etc - you can minimize the warping, but you'll still probably experience some - how much, depends on how good of a welder, the process, materials, setup, cooling, number of welds, etc..

Problem - Axle Bearings to Carrier Bearings Alignment: Now, when you've warped the housing, the bearing ends are no longer correctly aligned with the centerline of the carrier/differential. So, when you install the axles, they are trying to connect the carrier/differential with the outer axle bearings that are not where they should be. This issue can not only make things track funny (wheels not parallel and on the right centerline), but also puts a wonky load on the bearings themselves. Depending on the amount of misalignment, this can wear your axle bearings out faster than normal - in addition to making things not quite track as they should (the tires).

Who Cares . . . Been Done Thousands of Times: There are hundreds of guys that have welded the crap out of housings and have "never seen a problem" -- fine -- no reason to argue with them about their work. Did the cars just "go down the road" without anybody ever having/experiencing a problem? Sure . . . maybe . . . maybe not . . . but how many of those same guys had alignment bars to check their final results - probably not many.

There are a couple ways to deal with this whole issue (assuming that some warping is going to take place).

1) Draw the tubing back - with strategically placed rosebud torch work on the opposite side of the bend (the side with the crown) and then shrinking the hot spots back (to draw the bend back out). This has been done on race car rears for years - takes a bit of practice, takes a bit of time (depending on how much bend, how many bends, degree of misalignment, etc) -- you still need an alignment bar to know when you're straight.

2) Don't weld the housing ends on until all the bracket work and associated welding is done. When I order a 9" rear end housing, I order it without the ends welded on. Then once I complete all my spring hanger, shock, traction-bar and other nonsense, then I weld the ends on - with a thick precision alignment bar to get them correctly aligned before the first tack weld. The alignment bar has aluminum 'pucks' that pickup the carrier bearing locations - to ensure the housing bearings are on the same centerline as the carrier bearings.

I'm going to start a thread on some rear ends that I'm building for 32's --- aftermarket stuff as well as reworked original banjos - will show what the 'alignment bar' is all about.