Technical banjo with 9" axles

has anyone here put 9 inch housing ends and axles in a banjo? what all is involved and do you use all factory stuff or do you have custom axles made and all that jazz? i saw a thread about this a long time ago but cant find it now if anyone could point me in that direction that would be good too

 

I believe you would have to have the axles cut to length and splined to fit the Banjo side gears. I think I remember a guy using Pinto axles and saying they had the proper spline.

 

Check with Hot Rod Works 208-463-1068
There is an old Frank Oddo article about doing this is a Hot Rod Quarterly, if someone still has them on the shelf,, I lost mine

 

Try an advanced search for V8 axle conversion. Lots has been posted from using Hot Rod Works to home brewed conversions. Several articles in R&C, etc. on machine work required.
I did mine back in the 80's from one of them.

 

Check out this thread, it will get you thinking...

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/partial-tech-unfinished-homebuilt-quickchange.733594/

It deals with axles, splines and spider gears as well.

 

Shameless self promotion....https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-contribution-modern-axles-in-a-banjo.733563/

 

My Dad did a couple conversions about 35 years ago. One he used a '50 Merc axle for a donor, and another he used a 9" Ford for the donor. About 10 years ago he did another with parts from Hotrod Works in Idaho.

 

I've got a Banjo rear out in the shed with no hubs or other brake pieces and plenty of nine inch parts laying around. All I need is to get my buddy away from his still a hottie gal friend long enough to get him to help me with it

 

At minimum I would think you would need;
A truing bar jig & inner & outer bearing "slugs".
Horizontal band saw, SawsAll or something to cut the ends off as square as possible.
A tape measure.
Metal Marker.
A Lathe is pretty handy.
Welder a must.
Proper axles, bearings and seals and of course 9" bearing ends..................................

 

I believ you could buy the new winters tubes with the 9" flanges and new axes from Krylon32, here is an alliance vendor, https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/members/krylon32.11470/

 

I used our 1.5" shaft for narrowing any rear and made plugs to fit the banjo carrier bearing on one side. I have a ring gear and pinion set available that has the ring gear machined for 28 spline side gears if your interested.

 

I have the hot rod works conversion to 9” axles but with early Ford brakes. You can get 9” ends from them also.

John

 

If I had to choose between working on her rear end, or yours, you'd be waiting. Just saying.

 

The problem with using modified 9” Ford or F1 or Merc side gears is that they do not mesh well with the spider gears. This video shows the mesh of the following gears:
1. Merc / F1 gear
2. 9” Ford gear
3. Hot Rod Works gear.
Our gears are manufactured to our specifications. The gear teeth are a perfect match of the original 16 tooth early Ford axles and they have an internal spline to accept 28 spline axles.



Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Just an information point, 8" and 9" 28 spline axles are generally interchangeable.

 

Anything short of what Big Deuce has for a "jig" would not be considered a truing bar IMO. A 3/8" all thread with flat washers would not work especially if welding brackets on while in the jig...................................

 

An ideal fixture would be 2 fixed points for the shaft at the differential end.

 

I concur, that is what I did when I built my narrowing fixture, machined a pair of slugs anchored by the bearing caps, it maintains the original factory axle centerline.

 

Banjo does not have main saddles so, that's out. The 1.5" shaft I have is long enough to do both bells, mounted to a center section but would not have the "carrier" installed. It would rely on the end donuts and carrier bearing adapters. The carrier I have converted to 28 spline axles is mated to 11 tooth '40-48 spiders, and turns smooth as silk, nothing like the video in HRWs post. Not saying the posted info is wrong, I just have not experienced the rumpy bumpy gear meshing with the combo I have now. With the 4 spiders, and one side gear in a machined housing, its rolls VERY smooth. When I bolt the ring gear on so all spider and side gears are engaged, I can turn with 28 spline axle and its effortless. I would not be afraid to try the setup I have now, just don't have a car close to road worthy to try it out.

 

bttp

 

Hot Rod Works did mine years ago

 

I have done a couple of these conversions and the Big Deuce post works very well. You need to know what you're doing when you weld on the brackets. Keep moving slowly and slide the trueing bar to make sure no bending occurs. I use them on Quickchanges.

 

In Jethro's link that he posted above, he mentioned the machine work he had to do to get rid of the "choppy" mesh. This is typical to what we've seen.

"You can see the difference in the original gear on the right and the bored out gear.
The next step was facing both pieces to get the proper clearance for the gears to mesh properly. I took 5 thou cuts and test fitted each time till I got a smooth differential action. Too tight and the gears mesh choppy. They will still turn but you would get a rough engagement. I also took enough off both sides so I could fit the hardened thrust washers from the nine inch. The process of cutting and assembly and disassembly took the longest time but it was important to get the right fit for proper operation."

I'm not just trying to promote product. We have disassembled many banjo rears that had F1 and 9" gears in them. After a lot of miles there is visible damage to the gear tooth faces. If you increase the lash to the point where they don't bind, the differential is loose. It still doesn't help the tooth to tooth interface under load. I'm not saying it won't work at all. Obviously it will. We just want to make it work the way it was designed to work by Ford.

 

Concerning the choppy differential gear mesh, it looked to me like the gear pitches for the Banjo spiders and 9" side gears were the same but the spider gear tooth crowns are too tall and bottom out in the root of the side gears. For the conversion I did for the Mysterion clone I ground down the crowns on the 4 spider gears. Granted my car will never be driven more than a few feet if at all so there is nothing critical about the gearing precision but that modification smoothed out the mesh in the diff. Otherwise I did exactly the same machining of the diff as Jethro did and used the wheel adaptors that ydopen did.

 

i completly agree with what you are saying . i plan on driving the snot out of my car so it makes sense to have precisin gears precision made and not kinda close ish grinding them by hand. so i guess it appears this whole prosess can be completed by purchasing
1. a pair of side gears
2.housing ends
3. axles
and machinework to the carrier and the ring gear

 

I built one up and used 7.5 side gears.

 

Hmm, what does she have that you don't?

 

I'm facing the same dilemma on a customers V8 Quickchange right now. The conversion to Mercury (I think) side gears was already done. It seems to be a good job and very smooth. But, to keep the early style Lincoln brakes requires custom axles and the bearing adapters as shown in post #24. It doesn't appear that HRW sells just that piece. I was going to call them about that, but since they are on this thread, maybe they will let us all know.

 

@GearheadsQCE are you just looking for the 9 inch end to hold axle bearing and backing plates

 

John,
I found what I was looking for at HRW.
Thanx for checking in,

Bruce