the trick I"ve heard is to head the end of the axle, then whack it with a hammer to close it up a bit. Then ream to standard size. They usually get wallered at the top and bottom ends of the hole, so might need to pay attention to that part of it.
Unless you or your buddies are machinists; this would be pretty costly. Could always look for another axle; people tend to throw them away when they add an off topic IFS.
37/38/39 chevy axles aren’t easy to come by in these parts. It’s not really all that bad, just want to make it right before I put it on. If I found another one who knows it could be worse.
My '37 Chevy truck has an axle from a early 50's truck under it. I didn't know it till I went to replace the king pins. The later axle uses a bigger pin diameter. Don't limit your search, there are others that my fit with a little adapting.
I wasn’t advocating a hand drill and a few bushings. I often hear of folks who take their axles in and have the ends line honed? and new bushings put in, they don’t mention the cost though.
Yeah you can have a machine shop machine and press a steel sleeve into the axle boss. Had several done thru the years. The machine shop will even cut the slot in the new sleeve for the cross pin. Check for heavy equipment machine shops around your area, its done on heavy equipment axles often do to the fact some of those axles are really expensive and its cheaper to sleeve. We use a semi machine shop for ours.....
Freeman frame & wheel in San Jose; my son has tasks done there frequently. BIG truck shop. I used to do that part in Concord Safety Center, large axle repair, alignment, chassis. Any large machine shop that does farm & big truck repair.
What you guys are looking for is a shop that does “Axle Eye Resleaving”. Very common in our world of heavy duty trucks. Look for a shop that specializes in heavy duty truck chassis and suspension service. I’ve actually done this type of work. If you were around the St. Louis metro area I could recommend a shop.
Repaired a few Ford axles. Clamp the axle securely; heat the end, insert a mandrel (I use a modified (undersize) Model A kingpin), work the eye inward to the mandrel (I use a couple old chisels with the end ground concave to match the shape of the axle), knock the mandrel out before it gets too hot and stuck, repeat the process as needed to get the bore where you want, and when it is cooled down, use an adjustable reamer (a regular kingpin bushing reamer isn't made for steel) to get it to size..
Got a machine shop up here that does steer axles for us . they will even cut off really bad ears on cast axles and weld new ones on. sleeves , new ears , welded and line bored . rebuild spindles and uprights etc . find a machine shop that does heaven equipment, trucks and forklifts. Might try calling a forklift dealer in your area and see who they use. most machine shops don’t get involved in this kind of stuff as it’s “ custom work”. Most like the straight forward production stuff.
Different application but the repair process would be the same. reading some of the other posts, heating and shaping the ends , would that only get the ends into spec ? What about the middle of the bore ? Im sure it works and works well, but to me it would be like knurling valve guides , good fix but won’t last as long as the “ correct fix” maybe I’m over thinking this , I dunno
Sounds like you are thinking of when new bushings sized on a Sunnen hone; but that is just the bushings not the axle itself.
You can use weld shrinkage to shrink the kingpin eyes. I have done this on a number of axles. Use either stick or MIG weld with plenty of current. Go all the way round the eye welding top to bottom and then an overlapping pass bottom to top on the next pass and so on. This is a really poor quality photo but you can get the idea. Once you're done, you can grind off the excess weld and you are left with an eye that should be shrunk enough internally to put a reamer through to get it back to size and it will have acquired more metal on the outside of the eye. Personally I'm not keen on the drill the eye out and bush it solution as the actual kingpin eye has to be slightly weaker as a result, maybe that's not a issue if the eyes are really generously sized, but that isn't always the case.
The center of the axle hole should still be pretty close to size, it's the ends that get bigger. If you are going to heat it, why not fill it with braze and ream that back to size? Brazing rod is just as good as a brass bushing isn't it?
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