Superbell broken axle

All I got to say is thank God Im using a 32 Heavy in my build.

 

I bought the Superbell in my roadster back in Nov.'03....but, I just recently "finished" the car and started driving it this past April...only got about a 1000 mi on it
Wonder how old/new are the S/B's that are being reported broken !!!
I've closely inspected my axle this weekend for cracks, rust spots,pits,etc...found nothing so far ( at least anything I can see..!!)

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7852872&postcount=170


That post doesn't explain why the axle broke,
how many others may be affected, and what
Superbell are doing to prevent it from happening again.

So the story is not over.

 

is there anything Metal wize made in China thats good? I havent seen anything good.. to me it just looks like its a bad casting. the China Made tools are crap.. why not this..? . and a Guy with a busted up car because of it,,.

 

I dreamed Superbell contacted Chassis Engineering to forge all their axles from steel from now on, and the owners of the cast ones got a free replacement on surrender of their cast ones.

And there is free gas for anyone in California that can prove they're really straight.

Then I woke up

 

Right ! When things happen that I never heard of happening before, there's something strange going on .... like
Kennedy assasination
9/11
Elvis's death...
those never happened before they happened, so I start to wonder too....

 

That was what ran through my mind as soon as I read the first post. But then, I am a commercial insurance broker, this is the sort of scenario that keeps me up nights...

 

I was at the Hot Nights hot rod shop on Saturday. They are a very large dealer for Lucky 7 products, axles, springs, etc. The owner of the shop told me that the Lucky 7 suspension components are made in China and in fact the Lucky 7 and Superbell axles and suspension parts are made in the same Chinese factory right side by side. I only use Henry Ford axles in my cars nothing else. To me the front axle is a very important piece in both looks and strength. You just can't go wrong with an original Henry axle. In all the years the original Ford axles have been around and with all the abuse they have gone through I have never heard of one breaking. The 1932 Ford axle has been around for 80 years and I've never seen a broken one yet. Good old Henry Ford made in the U.S.A. parts versus made in China parts. Now which axle do you want under your car?

 

The Chinese can produce a product to the same standards as anything made in the USA, if you want to pay for it. No one will.

Bob

 

I bought my Speedway Super Bell 5 or 6 years ago and it has over 12000 miles on it, including 400 I put on Saturday going to the Scrap Drive. I'm not going to worry about it breaking for no reason. I musta got a good one.

Blue

 

Lucky 7 ,I-Beam axles claim to be forged........http://www.lucky7ent.com/page14.html

 

The conclusion is this, the mercury kid is getting his money back for his purchases from Visa CC, Speedway will be charged back on the account and Jerry Slover will recover from warranty, as for the cause of the failure unless you send it to a real lab we will never know, there are failures in every manufacturing process, nothing is 100% , remember the arc was built by a novice, the titanic was built by engineers......its time to let this dead hores die.....

 

Don't know about you but I sure feel better, hugs and kisses................................ Bullshit!

 

The OP is quiet.


Wonder why.


Think.

 

I have a feeling the fat lady hasn't even left her dressing room, and when she does, it aint gonna be pretty...
Unfortunately, I have a funny feeling that when she is done singing, its gonna reverberate for a while...

 

Funny you should mention the Titanic. They didn't let that horse die. Still doing forensic engineering and metallurgical investigation on it's failure 100 years later. Inquiring minds want to know why the axle failed, and what's being done to prevent future occurrences.

Bob

 

This is about much more than one axle. Was it a manufacturing defect and could a whole run of product be defective. People are driving on the roads with these and we don't want anyone hurt.

I don't know who forges axles anymore but someone must because large trucks all use them. A forge is a very large noisy, ground shaking process that would likely be done in a heavy industrial area. The same forge that makes large truck axles could make these axles with the proper tooling. Almost any foundry could cast an axle but cast iron is going to be brittle. Even if a company orders forged axles, unless they are present at production, they could be deceived. Destructive testing would be the only way to find out. Put an axle in a jig and try to bend it.

 

The only thing that looks odd to me is the damage on the radiator shell is pretty high. Did the wheel flip up and do that.
The casting looks Chinese to me. There castings are very pouris .
By the looks of the rust it was going for a while.


Hoss

 

let this Dead horse die ?
Are you Fucking kidding me.

Watch, some legislation will be written in blood on a dead man's chest if this isnt corrected .

 

I would assume it is being corrected. The hamb certainly does carry credibility in the hot rod industry IMO.

The mods let this thread survive, and that survival is reason to believe any defects will be taken care of, rather than ignored. I have faith they will fix the problem, if that's what they find to be the cause.

 

That's absolutely ridiculous, that may be the stupidest thing I've ever read.

 

I hope he will send it to a lab to find out.... that is the only way to know for sure. Hey, send it (or a piece of it) to me, and I'll have it tested myself.

 

Read post 170, the Axle is already out of his possession........................

 

Just what I was thinking when I made the comment about "reverberating". A class-action lawsuit against an aftermarket company selling axles with metallurgical issues of this sort could have profound and lasting reverberations for the entire industry.Those that have been involved in racing may remember the unsuccessful(thank god) lawsuit that was launched against Simpson in the nineties. Potentially VERY scary stuff in todays legislative enviroment...I wonder if SEMA is watching this go down. Frank, I sure as HELL hope this doesn't end up with federal government deciding to "fix" it for them.

 

If an axle meets the ductile iron spec they're supposedly made to, then the ability to bend before breaking would be about the same for the cast axle and one forged from 1045, which is the common steel for forgings like this.

Problem is, all these axle castings are sourced offshore, most likely from China, so the quality control just isn't going to be there like it would be if it was coming from a US or Canadian shop that's making high grade ductile castings for the auto industry.

There's no guesswork in determining whether the casting is domestic or imported, even though the P&J website clearly states on the front page that everything they sell is made in the US. Quite simply, domestic castings for relatively low quantity parts are too expensive to hit the current selling price point for a finished axle.

The axle weighs about 30#. US sourced ductile iron castings suitable for structural components are in the $3.30 to $3.50 per pound range. That would put the bare casting at $100 to $105 Add about $40 for machining since the holes are in 4 different planes. Add packaging plus transportation from foundry to machine shop and from there to either P&J or to the retailer, and you've easily got another $15. Total cost $155 to $160.

Any of the larger retailers won't pay more than 60% of their selling price for anything they're buying, and most of them would be pushing for 50%. At 60% of a $265 selling price, they'd be paying $159 for the axle. IOW, no profit for Super Bell, and more probably a loss of a few bucks on every one they sell.

Castings are one of the areas where the Chinese beat our brains out on pricing for the following reasons....
-lack of envionmental regs
-cheap labor
-lack of quality control
-lack of worker safety regs (foundry work is dangerous and expensive to insure in the US)

You can currently buy Chinese ductile iron castings (although they may not really be ductile iron) delivered to a US port for $1 per pound or slightly less. Assuming the machine work is done in the US to justify saying its made in USA, the machining and other miscellaneous costs would be the same as for the domestic casting.

The difference being a blank cost of $30 for Chinese and $100 for the domestic blank. That $70 difference is the gross profit for P&J. $70 gross on a $160 sale would give a 40+ percent gross on the sale, which is right about where most businesses find they need to be to remain profitable.

Unfortunately, the quality of the finished product is more dependent on the casting itself than on the subsequent machine work or anything else involved, and casting is one of the processes where the Chinese are known to be alll over the map quality-wise.

Personally, I doubt the blanks for any of the beam axles on the market today, cast or forged, and coming from anywhere but China. That said, I'd tend to put a lot more trust in a Chinese forging than a Chinese casting since its harder to screw up a steel forging than a ductile iron casting.

 

^^^

Interesting viewpoint.

Mart.

 

Seriously?

 

A few of my thoughts on the matter, I suspect it will go nowhere until somebody is killed by such a failure.

Especially since the folks selling them dont seem to want to manage things better, all they are doing is increasing the chances that it will happen.

 

Ductile Iron has no place on suspenshon parts .Ford twisted there axles like a cork screw to prove strength .t

 

Ted - lots of high volume manufacturers use SG cast iron parts in their steering and suspension systems, so that statement is just not true. If a well made SGI axle was put to the same test, it's most likely cork-screw up as well - there are lots of bent cast axles out there, in fact I'm looking at one right now.

Back when Henry was making beam axles there was no such thing as SG iron - it wasn't an option because it wasn't invented. Had it been around then, it's likely they could have been made from SGI.

The problem here is with the lack of quality control which exists at the foundries producing these axles.