Technical Speedway Early Ford Hub Failure BEWARE!

We had a great time at TROG this year. Got to hang out with a bunch of friends, got to make some new ones and see a ton of great cars. Everything was going awesome till we decided to take some pictures with the roller coaster in the back ground, My buddy Steve and I pulled our cars out to good spot to take the photos. Took the photos and then it was off to get something to eat and a beer. as we were driving back to the exit the, the car bouncing along in the sand, I heard a thump, then stopped moving. No grinding sounds, no catastrophic failure explosion. We couldn't fix it there anyway so Steve took me back to the hotel to get my truck and trailer and we pulled it up on the trailer and decided to look at it later, and just went and got some grub. Later I pulled the hub cap off the pass side rear wheel thinking maybe I sheared an axle key. whe I popped the cap off a big chunk of metal fell out onto the trailer. To my astonishment, the frreaking hub had broken apart, woodruff key pointing up.

These are Speedway early ford hubs, that were on the axle already when I bought it from a friend of mine. Personally I would not have bought them, but he had, they were new with new speedway drums on them as well, so I just left them. I just got this car on the road 2 weeks ago, and it has less than 350 miles on it since then. I trailered it to both Old North State Invitational and to TROG just because I didn't have many miles on it and it had not been tested out to my liking yet. So glad I did.

The Hubs are supposed to be forged, but these look like cast iron to me, they certainly don't have the grain structure of a forged steel part. And on top of that, if it was steel wouldn't it tear? not crack apart like and engine block? No matter I will be replacing both of the hubs and the drums with original Ford parts. I just wanted other people out there that might already be running these or planning on running these to see this. This happened at approximately 5 mph at about 1600 rpm on a the beach in the sand. and had never been abused. I would hate to see what would happen if this came apart at speed on the freeway. It could easily cause a car to go out of control and kill the driver or who ever he runs into when this Chinese crap comes flying apart. Below are some pictures of the failure.

 

Uggh, definitely looks casted to me.

 

Forged, as in a fake part?

 

Yep definitely cast, no doubt about it. Nice cutaway model of the axle key however.

 

Wow....what junk.The 75 year old Ford part you replace it with will be far better.

 

Wow, a cotter pin stronger than a "forged" hub! Where did you gets that cotter pin from? Seriously, glad it wasn't more serious. Was the hub advertised as forged? Get a lawyer and round up others for a class action lawsuit. Just the threat may make Speedway reform their ways.

 

They say they are "Steel" but this is not steel, it is cast, Steel will tear and bend not crack and crumble.

 

That's not forged.

 

I put a review and posted pictures on Speedways website, lets see if it ever makes it on to the site after they "review" it.

 

Even the original Ford hubs weren't forged. They are cast too. But that doesn't mean the original Ford's aren't a better material.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Spee...njo-Rear-Axle-Wheel-Hub-5-on-5-5-BP,8333.html

I don't see where Speedway claims them to be forged. But they should hope they don't crack apart.

 

I agree, cast iron. That's the problem with outsourcing parts to China. They have no idea what they are making for us and the stresses that it will undergo. Also, if anyone thinks that China gives a hoot about us they are crazy, they want to bury us.

 

After it's off, see if you can run a bead on it, might be cast steel? I've never seen what cast steel looks like shattered though.

 

They don't, I assumed that the orginal Ford stuff was forged, the speedway stuff claims to be steel, but steel weather cast or forged does not look like this when broken apart. This looks like cast iron, cast steel has a tighter grain structure.

 

that's why there are PF Changs in every major city, it will be the Chinese army headquarters buildings for each city once they invade us.

 

Thats what you get for buying Chinese made parts. I wonder how many of these so called "forged" parts sold by Speedway are out in use by unsuspecting rodders?

 

I wouldn't blame it all on the hub.
That axle was junk long before the hub was installed.
As wallowed out as that keyway is, I'll bet the key rolled out of the keyway a forced the hub to break .

 

............He didn't buy 'em. They were on the car when he got it.

 

Having that Chinese junk on a car you may not even know about is scarier yet. Again I ask, how many of these cast iron wheels sold by Speedway are still out there waiting to fail?

 

YES, exactly!!! A veritable Forging of a cast part...Forgery, plain and simple. Open and shut case. Good call, @bobss396!
As P-wood noted, DO look at the axle keyway. I had a '40 Coupe with a worn axle that I used hard keys in, a few hard-off-the-line burnouts (296" flattie) and that right rear key literally 'peeled' out the inside of the Ford hub. (this was in 1959)
MOON used to make 'soft' axle keys. Remember those?

 

Ha...I can remember when a 'Chinese Junk' was a vessel. (guess it still is...in our case!)

 

Yes pete is correct. Both petes!
That keyway wallowed out causing the key to flip and forced the hub to split.
Had that happen on a golf cart.

 

Man, I'm sorry to hear that!

I got to see your car on the beach though and it looked GREAT.

I took a picture.

 

When you get all your replacement parts and are ready to reassemble, make sure to not get any grease on the tapers of the axle or the hub. They need to fit tight together and lock themselves together with compression. The key might help, but the reason you put 200 pounds on the torque wrench is so the tapers lock and transfer the force.

I see some grease on the outer end of that axle taper.

 

wow. What a piece of crap that hub is. Glad you still got to go and have fun! See you at the next one!

 

Casting actually looks pretty good there doesn't seam to be any inclusions that would have weakened to the point of failure but im not a metallurgist either.It does look like the key may have been able to move around and actually caused the failure.Destuctive testing would be able to tell how the failure was caused.

 

Ill be there next year! just glad they didn't give me any flack about driving my truck and trailer out on the beach there to get it on Sun. Thanks for a good time as always!

 

You have a good point, I now wish I had torn it apart before I put it into the car, but I had bought the rear from a friend of mine that had taken it out of a very nice restored 39. I don't know if it was like that before or if it was wallowed out from spinning after it broke. Perhaps a little of both. Either way its gonna need a complete tear down and at least that axle replaced.

 

Check all your hubs and axles.
I’d like to view that hub closer.
Look for variances in the steel structure where the break exists.

https://www.sfsa.org/doc/Whitepaper-Failures.pdf

 

Glad you were not on the highway.

 

Hey burl, I think destructive testing was already done....