Superbell broken axle

Hey it's late , and there are two? "broken axle threads" bouncing up to the top tonight? I might have them mixed up. The one I was referring to was a fenderless 34 with a smashed windshield in front of the driver, and a smashed rad and shell at least.

 

From Page 6, post 106

Note the windshield!

 

The pic of the smashed up car and busted window kinda gives it away.

 

One was a Magnum, the other a Superbell.

Sounds like the exact same problem, wrong alloy.

 

Top of page 6, he's got a busted windshield on the drivers side. If he did it his body with his head or face or some object IDK, doesn't say. If it was his head, I sure wiuldnt want to be inside looking out.

 

Ouch, I missed that picture and post entirely. Sorry. Yep, that looks bad.

Don

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7850659&postcount=106

Check the pic on the right. Notice the damage to the windshield.
Easy to conclude that damage was caused by an impact with the drivers head.

 

To me, this is not about the construction method itself, as it is about sound design and quality control. Obviously, there are some un-trustworthy manufacturers out there.

I will agree with one thing ... Having seen the ad for forged axles at $275 each, I see no reason to buy a cast one. Come on, how much cheaper can you get? For something that stands between your family and possible death?

However, the same people botching the casting could be botching the forging too. Which makes me think that a used OEM Ford axle is a pretty good choice after all. It's already received its quality control twice - once at the factory, and once in its life on the road!

 

When I went to look for the pic when you had me wondering if I was on the wrong thread... I spotted something I missed.

In post one, towards the end, there is a hint of possible action? and perhaps trying for a class action? Pure speculation on my part though.

I would think I am just guessing on everything at this point, and I'd prefer to leave it up to the test facilites and investigators to do their job.

It is good news in a way, that hopefully there never has, and never will be a fatal crash injury caused by any aftermarket hot rod type part? What I mean is that with fast news on the web, if there is a bad batch of some part, it is caught quickly?

 

Well, truth be told. I'm 9 years into my build, with a Superbell chromed dropped tube axle. It (the hot rod) has never seen the light of day, and the the chrome is peeling off of both sides, where the fordged ends are welded into the tubes. Kind of makes me wonder what is going in the welded areas. After reading this, and problems on other forums, I seriously doubt my SB axle will ever be used on the street.

 

Is this a superbell, lucky 7 ,or some other companys axle. Who ever axle it is the company has a problem. Forge axles are the best reproduction. Please keep posting on this. GLAD to hear no one was hurt

 

I've looked at that picture over and over, and I keep coming up with the same question. What the hell kind of car is that? The original poster said the broken axle was on a '34 Ford coupe, that car in the pic sure doesn't look like my '34 Ford. That car looks like a Mopar.

 

...

Who said Ford ?

 

Glad I dropped my own 32 heavy axle for my model a!!!

 

See the subject line ? The one at the top of the page,
and above every post in this thread.
Right where it says "Superbell broken axle".

OR If you bothered to read the first post in this thread, it starts:
"i bough a superbell axle at Speedway motors
i put it on my 1934 ford coupe i drove my car for the first test run
and the axle broke in less then one mile..."

Why would you ask what brand it was ?

 

This may be the cause
Hydrogen embrittlement is the process by which various metals, most importantly high-strength steel, become brittle and fracture following exposure to hydrogen. Hydrogen embrittlement is often the result of unintentional introduction of hydrogen into susceptible metals during forming or finishing operations and increases cracking in the material.

 

Perhaps a potential problem, IF the part was Chrome plated.
Based on the pics, the broken axle was not Chromed.

 

I just got home...I happened to follow a stocker Model A Coupe for several miles. I watched its handling, tracking, pulled when he hit the brakes, never in the same direction, wandered the road ect, all in stock trim.....Got me thinking about this post.......Their is no way Henry Ford designed these axles to do what HotRodders do with them !......The added weight, the multiple different ways how we attach the axle from the day HotRodding started, split wishbone, 4 bars, Hairpins ect......never intended the additional weight and better brakes that see different types of energy loads ect. ect. ect.......Even the modern version of these axles be it forged or cast are nothing more than regurgitation of the old design...no improvement that I know of..........does it makes us all fools to use them the way we do under the current speeds and driving conditions we find in society today. '' including me''..trying to compete w/ the modern car speed and stopping capability and ability to handle rough roads ect...........Use at your own risk period................Littleman

 

Iv said this before but since you bring it up
As your thinking about that axle front end …. Look at the physical size of some of the other components….the thickness of the main leaf - shackle bolts - crossmember - spindle… all holding up the car and all smaller than that axle yet all people seem to focus on is that big thick axle.

 

Dave, I think it's the "mania" bug or the fact that humans like to dog pile when given the chance.

 

I agree...you even need to be aware of where the bolts your buying are made today...most made in crap city........99% of us are not Engineers....but we pretend to be in our back yards......Hell, in high school I welded up my rear suspension solid in my 68 Chevelle ..cut the floor out of the car, bolted the trans to the rearend and drove it to school......I am way guilty of not knowing what the hell I am doing..ha ha......Littleman

 

OK, tell us all how you would handle this if it were your head that hit that windshield .....................................

 

Read this...again.

Sooo...

I'm sorry if I don't put too much stock in the initial post of this thread. Less than 1 mile and it just snapped?! Something is REALLY wrong. If the axle was slid out of it's SuperBell cardboard box, assembled and installed on the car and it JUST SNAPPED....yeah, I'd be furious. Being as how I have NEVER heard of this happening, sorry, but I'm thinking something's up.

 

Went to the Long Beach Swapmeet today and a guy had another broken SUPERBELL axle displayed there. Very similiar break to this one...

 

Thought about this a lot. I am an engineer....but not a metalergical engineer...but I did have to take a aerospace met class once upon a time.

Thoughts:
1.) This may be a legitimate Superbell axle.
a.) It could be part of a batch with poor QC. They had a quality escape and it went out the door.
b.) It could have been fine as shipped but experienced something that could have weakened it in the area where it broke. (Heat...as in torch or welding that could have had detrimentally affected the mechanical properties of the casting, surface damage leading to fatigue cracking, etc.)

2.) This could have been a counterfiet product.
a.) If this is the case and the op is being truthful about where it came from then company he has purchased it from would have some serious explaining to do.
b.) Also would be a good question as to whether or not Superbell is aware of counterfiet products being produced with their logo and sold by another company as a legitimate product.


If the above were true (and I'm not saying it is or isn't) This would not be the first time I have heard of counterfiet product being produced in china and sold to distributors in the US as a legitimate product.

A friend of mine once upon a time on another unrelated forum offered to sell me a Carbon Fiber bicycle fork made by a company called Ritchey (who are well known in that industry for quality bike parts). After seeing some photos I became suspisious that it was not a legitimate product.

I found out later that a huge batch of these forks made it to the US and were 100% counterfiet....and were sold by false representative to a handful of online bike parts distributors. The problem was that they were experiencing catastrophic failure at the bond between the metal dropout and the carbon fork legs. People were getting hurt over this. So Ritchey starts getting hate mail from dissatisfied customers. People sent their broken forks to them and they were dumbfounded.

Their legitimate forks were being made in china at a place where they were contracted to do so and had quality control checks in place. Someone took one of their forks to a manufacturing facility across town and made a mold of it and began making their own shitty version of it....on a large scale.

If they can do this shit with a CF bike fork I'd bet they'd sure try to do it with a cast iron axle.

 

Uh-oh! you done woke up the boss!
When you go back to post #134, you can see rust stains on the drivers side by the spring perch. This looks to me like 11 pages of poop could have been avoided had that been seen,and inspected, before the test drive.

 

But wasn't it the passenger side that failed?

Bob

 

You guys really need to read post # 170 end of story........

 

I don't think that's a fair conclusion until we know the cause of the failure and the manufacturer's position on the matter.

Bob

 

^That is exacly what I thought, bob. If you don't know the root cause of failure then you don't know the end of the story.