Bought a handfull of QC housings & "parts" from a roundy rounder who is no longer with us. Most have been worked on, some are OK except for a common crack, see pic. Is this a deal breaker as far as selling or trading? Yes, I know it can be welded......................................
Welding the crack in the pinion bearing area won't be the hardest part, but restoring the distorted bearing bore from the heat could be touch and go. As to it being a deal breaker; we would need to know the deal to venture a guess.
Maybe one little dab of weld at a time might keep it from warping the bore..... It don't hurt to try it..
Not a deal breaker, a little weld won't hurt it. If you are gentle with the weld, you can keep from harming the bore, which is a pain in the ass to fix if you warp it. Nice score, -Abone.
Not a weldor but I was a machinist for thirty years and prepped for both production and repair work, these old eyes can see from here that's at least a half inch thick there. That's gonna need to be v'd out, washed clean, preheated and tig welded, read that as " a lot of heat". Any other approach will just lead to another crack.
leave a dummy pinion and bearing in when you weld it-it will be cracked again next time you tear it down anyway! or do what I finally did,ignore the crack and run it anyway.{P.S. I've run the halibrand centers that had the pinion support milled out altogether without a problem on a sprint car]
Those cracked pinion nose bearing pockets can indeed be welded. But, almost all of them re-crack because guys think they can get away with just welding them on the outside. To do it right, you need to weld the inside first, then weld the outside. As DDDenny said, getting the the bearing pocket back into shape is the hard part. If you're clever, you can center on the pinion bore and reach in with a boring bar on a mill and rebore the pocket. Since you welded on the inside, it generally will pull the housing in, effectively making the hole smaller. I recently made a cutter that pilots on the pinion bore that will cut it back to size. Old racers would weld them repeatedly, until they got tired of it, and then ran them broke. I have successfully left them cracked and just put the bearing in with green LocTite. On two occasions, I left the bearing out altogether. This was an experiment that showed that the straddle mount bearing is not all that critical. As a QC rebuilder, I can't recommend that, just sayin'. Now as to the sale-ability of the pieces, here is what I like and don't like about your pieces: First pic - don't like the crack, that's a $250 fix Second pic - 12 bolt case is more desirable than 11, but the lumps making it a universal casting are not pretty, yellow paint is nice, though. Third pic - adapter plates good, duct tape bad (what;s that for?) Fourth & Fifth pics - Lumpy case again, good looking adapter plates, all mag stuff, not as desirable as aluminum Sixth pic - nice 12 bolt case, is it cracked? Seventh pic - Another good looking mag case, cracked? Eighth pic - "Roadster" doesn't mean a damn thing Ninth & Tenth pic - Gears are good if you can make them into sets, but about $25/set if you want to sell them. The live axle and associated side plates are only interesting to someone restoring an old sprint car. you'd be surprised at how few of them there are. Eleventh pic - nice rear cover I'd buy the whole lot from you, but you would have to pay the shipping and give me more pics of each piece before I could come up with a fair price.
oh yea the reason the pinion support was milled out was to run the ring gear on the opposite side for a reverse rotation engine!!Marv Fillips asphalt deal
Denny, actually the picture is quite deceiving. The wall of the bore might be as thin as .060". The rolled over portion that keeps the bearing from coming out the front makes it look much thicker than it really is.
Thanks to all above for taking the time to respond! Trying to set up my QC, '36 rear bones, spring and cross member, it's been a struggle to hold it all together to weld the bones brackets on to the bells. Had an idea to take one of the junk QC's cut off the back section so I could "span" the spring perches L&R with a piece of channel in order to keep it all tied together straight and true. This should also locate where my split mounts on other end will be.
Ouch! I wish you woulda asked before you cut that center up. I would have made spacers to go between the side plates. You now have a fixture to use for future installations. I could sell you all my special tools and you could be the new QC guy
That was my thought, make it a tool/jig for future QC's, maybe lend it out for others? When I get to the next stage it will be clearer than words what I am trying to do. Believe me I didn't use a housing with a simple crack! It had extensive welding on the inside! I could have used this one but than I would not have been able to set my pinion angle..........................................