Forged Steel Front Axle, Cutting And Welding Permitted?

2Loose

2Loose

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I have an interesting problem I'll put out here for discussion:

I've been challenged about cutting and welding a '59 forged steel front Ford F100 truck axle to narrow it to fit under my '55 Chevy blown Olds powered "gasser" style project.

Apparently I asked too many questions about the cancellation of the Summit Series at our local drag strip of the "Board", and have come under increased "scrutiny". The "Board" has decided that my cutting and narrowing of this axle to get it to fit under my car is not an acceptably safe practice and that my car should be banned from the track, due to possible front axle failures. It's become very political, for reasons I won't go into, but I feel what I have done is completely safe and can be defended.

Think about the forged crankshafts that are routinely welded up and machined and run perfectly safe.

Forged high carbon steel is weldable. I learned that when in high school in the 50's in an agricultural area, which was subsequently confirmed in the early 60's in a highly rated agricultural college (University of California at Davis), where I worked my way through to an Agricultural Engineering degree working on various Ag Machinery projects in the Ag Engineering shop on campus.

The details on my cutting and narrowing of this axle is shown here on my website. If any of you have knowledge of proper welding techniques for modifications of this type, I would appreciate your review of my work and your comments on the safety and performance potential of the finished product.

Bear in mind that I am a licensed PE, in the Agricultural Engineering discipline, where modifications of this sort are common and accepted practice. My experience in this area includes both supervision of others doing this work and the performance of this type of work myself over the last 45 years in the Hawaiian Sugar and Pineapple industries.

Here's the link to the discussed web page.

Aloha,
Willy
 
I don,t know what people your dealing with of course but having done almost identical fabrication modifications to similar front axles in the past , (one on a t-bucket with a 392 hemi , and one on a strait axle , modified 55 Chevy with a 454 big block installed ) and having cut and beveled the welded joint prior to welding in a similar manor to what you've posted and tig welded (they used to call that heil-arc) the connection on two different axles in the past all I can say is it looks like you do very good work and the problem is more than likely 90% political not based on any potential structural problem.
both the axles we modified worked fine without any failures and ones over 40 years old, the others over 30 years old
in fact just looking at what you did Id have ZERO worries about its structural integrity, now if its a problem you can have the weld x-rayed, and magna fluxed to show its a good weld, but that seems like a great deal of wasted effort

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=3363&p=8863&hilit=magnaflux#p8863
 
Right, it's probably 100% political, they also fabricated some reason to ban me from the track for two years, but the other board members went after them and stopped that! I had made an online comment about how cs it was to cancel our friday nite Summit Racing series, which was real popular over here, but they weren't making enough money off of it, so they cancelled it! I shouldn't have made the comment, but it did cause them to behave in a real cs manner for all to see, and there has been a good reaction in my favor cause of it. but that doesn't solve the welded axle "problem"....

Guess I won't be racing with this rig, unless there is a change of management, and that just might be in the works!

I'm also looking around for another axle, one that is certified, that will meet my specs.
50" kp to kp, 28-3/4" spring pad spacing, 2" wide leafs, 59 ford f100 spindles and kingpins. I have modern GM 3/4 ton truck disk brakes adapted to this and don't want to have to discard those. Any ideas?
Willy
 
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/search-front-axles.html

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/1947-54-C ... #answerbox

http://www.droppedaxles.com/FORD_AXLES. ... 431412F231

King pin to king pin centers = 50.5"
6" drop measured from spring pad to spindle boss center
Axle accepts a 1-3/4" wide spring
Spring pad center-to-center = 26.75"
Center to center of u-bolt holes is 2.30" side to side
Center to center of u-bolt holes front to rear is 3.195"
Spring pad width is 29.072" center to center of the outer U-bolt holes
Axle Kingpin Boss Height: 2-7/16" (2.438")
 
Here's an update on where this is going, I had googled "dropped axles" and this site (LINK), among others, had shown up. With my narrowed axle it fits my leaf spring location perfectly, When the axle was stock width (53.5") it was too wide at the spring perches, as my leaf springs are mounted right under the frame rails. With the axle narrowed the spring perches are at 28-3/4" wide, that's what I need to find in an unmodified axle, as I don't want to have to rebuild that whole spring mounting system.

This pix is with the axle narrowed, 5 deg caster, what I eventually went with:
Front%20Axle%20Mounts%2008s%20July09.JPG


Although I have some 5" wide 15" steelies to run at the track, I like these 8" rims with some offset to run on the street, and they fit perfectly just under the fender rim with this axle. So I need to find a 50" wide, kp to kp, plus or minus slightly is ok, to run, that would fit my leaf spring spacing. Leafs are 2" wide.

Take a look at this pix from the dropped axle website (above), shows my axle, in stock form at top, and the other two are stretched additional inches to get more drop, how did they "safely" do that? How would that modification be any more safe then mine?
IMAG023.JPG


The guy who built the "Shakey Puddin" axle is Jim Tinsmith, of "Tinny's Hot Rods", I have a contact in to him to ask about welding up a dropped axle to fit my car, no answer yet. I've been told that chrome moley, properly tig welded and heat treated, would be acceptable for our track.

The local "professor" of welding, the welding tech instructor at our local community college, suggested a bolt on truss I could put on the axle. We discussed how to attach it, and discarded the idea of welding on the truss. Bolting it on would be an acceptable method of attaching it. The idea is to provide a solid vertical upward support at the middle of the axle.

I'm drawing it up now. Pair of 1/4" plates sandwiched on the axle in three locations, up next to each leaf spring, and in the middle. 4 ea. 1/2" grade 8 bolts, two above and two below the axle at each location, located tight against the top and bottom of the axle, pinning the plates tightly against the axle. The side plates to have an additional 2" upward above the bolts at the sides, and downward at the middle. Four half inch steel rods running diagonally, two on each side, one in front, one in back of the axle, running from the top of the side plates to the bottom of the middle plate.

Lift the frame up to take all load off the axle, place the truss on and bolt it down solid. When put back on the ground, the vertical downward forces at the middle of the axle will be picked up by these rods and transferred to the plates next to the leaf springs. A truss of this nature will transfer a huge amount of load from the middle of the axle directly to the leaf springs.

It probably would work even better if I could modify the spring mounts themselves to take the load transfer from the truss, but we think this arrangement with bolt on plates would work fine, and could be fabricated under supervision of a certified welder, or maybe even done by the certified welder himself.

Now whether the tech inspector at NHRA would accept it or not is another question!
I'm going to draw it up and submit it to the NHRA tech and see what happens.

Man, sometimes life gets real interesting just when you least expect it!!!
Willy
 
I'm not getting anywhere with the local NHRA on accepting my narrowed and welded front axle. So, I've located a suitable replacement! Sid's Axles in Guthrie, OK has all kinds of axles, ford, chevy, etc, etc, and can supply me with a '48 - '52 ford F1 front axle that matches up exactly to my 29" leaf spring spacing. The kingpin spacing is about 3/4" wider than my narrowed axle is, so the wheels will sit 3/8" further out on each side, not a problem at all!

The only other thing Sid will do before shipping the axle to me, is to widen the U-bolt holes 1/8" on each side of the leafs, as my leafs are 2" wide and the stock holes are for 1-3/4" wide leafs, that's easy and is not a problem. The other is that the spindle/kingpins I have are 0.859" and this axle has 0.8125" kingpins, but not a problem to ream out the knuckles to take the 0.0465" larger kingpins. And the knuckle inclination needs to be adjusted to the '59 4 degrees setup, again not a problem. Sid's will do that for me, sand blast the axle and ship it to me. I'll paint it and install it with all my gear on it, and there is plenty of room on my drag link (cross steer) and tie rod to take up that additional width at the kingpins.

Sounds like an acceptable solution for the NHRA to me!
Aloha,
Willy

http://www.droppedaxles.com/FORD_AXLES.html
 
I got a "new" axle, it's a '48-'52 vintage Ford F1 pickup front axle, and will fit my front spring's 29" spacing exactly with no modifications. But needed to drill it to get the 'old' look:

NewFrontAxle%2010s%20Mar%202012.JPG


LINK to more pix....

Now to swap it out with the old axle....
Aloha,
Willy
 
thats darn impressive, I wish most guys on the site would take the time to actually fabricate parts and work thru issues rather than relieing totally on bolt in ,off the shelf components and stop looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a logging truck when you mention fabricating or modifying components
 
Gutted the front end, painted the new axle, doing a few other chores while it's apart under there, here's the 'new' axle next to the 'old' axle....
I'll mount the 'new' axle first then move the spindles over and the rest of the stuff....
Willy
NewFrontAxle%2012s%20Mar%202012.JPG


LINK to more pix here.....
 
Got the "new" front axle installed....
NewFrontAxle%2017s%20Mar%202012.JPG

....But unfortunately I suddenly remembered that I had originally rebuilt the "old" ('59 Ford F100) axle with ten thou oversize kingpins, bushings and reamed that axle's knuckles to fit...
Now I have to find the correct reamer and ream this axle's knuckles to fit my ten thou oversize kingpins.....
Aaarrrggghhh....
It never ends....
Willy
LINK to more pix....
 
Nobody locally has the type of adjustable barrel reamer I need to take ten thou out of the axle knuckles to fit my kingpins. Several guys suggested honing to fit, but that process is not the best way to go for what I want to do.

My brother in Oregon has what I need and is mailing it out to me so I can get the job done properly. Here's a shot of when I did that same job on the "old" '59 axle last year....
Gasser%20Axle%20Ream%20Kingpins%2005s%20Aug%2009.JPG

LINK to more pix....
.....using that same reamer. So I get to do it again, on the "new" '52 axle....
Oh What Fun......

Aloha,
Willy
 
Adjusted the front end to 1/16" toein, it seems to like that , goes straight down the road, handles nicely, the sides of the front tires are right even with the fender sides, the earlier axle had them tucked in slightly, that's the only difference I can see...

And I backed off the QA-1's adjustment from full firm to about in the middle, and it rides quite nice with that setting, it was pretty "bouncy" before with the "full hard" setting....

Added some "restraints" to the front ends of the ladder bars, per NHRA rulebook specs, and am adding a "diaper" under the motor per the 10 second rules, as I do expect to get into that bracket....

Test and tune first and see how well it tracks and stays straight....
Will letcha all know how well it goes...
And will try to take a movie of the first run, and then the first successful run....
Aloha,
Willy
 
Before I can run at the track this coming Saturday, I had to add ladder bar restraints, as required by the NHRA rules. Here's what I came up with:

55gasser%20ladder%20bars%204s%20Apr%202012.JPG


LINK to how these were designed and fabbed....

Now all I need to do is add a "diaper" under the oil pan, as required, just in case I "blow the motor".....
It's new in the NHRA rule book for the 10 second cars....
And I do hope to get into the tens....
Aloha,
Willy
 
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