Ford 8 inch differential

[Crosley.In.AZ]

I took apart a Ford 8 inch diff last nite.

I have never seen an axle shortened quite like the photo shows.  Axle re-welded at the bearing area.  this axle was narrowed about 35 yrs ago

[wayne petty]

i have seen... many moons ago... something that scares me as much as that does...

a crank shop downtown los angeles...  had various axle shafts on their storm vulcan crank welder...   they were welding up the worn areas after grinding the surface down a bit then on the crank machine to bring them back to proper size...  shipping them back to an axle supplier in arizona...

i wonder if that axle was shortened.. or is it resized / repaired ... by the welding..

that must be quite a welding job for it to last that long...

i am taking that its perfectly straight...

[enjenjo]

There is a guy here who builds garden tractor pullers that does them that way.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

that must be quite a welding job for it to last that long...

sorry I was not clear on the time line here wayne.

This vehicle has not turned a wheel under power since 1977

[GPster]

There's a machine shop here that has welded axles for as long as I've known them. Probably longer than that. They cut them between the bearing races and the splines grind the cut ends to a cone shape and weld them back together with many longitudinal passes while turning it around in their welding fixture. They also do drive shafts and will weld them together in the center of the tube if that is what works best with the pieces that they're given. I converted a Bronco to 2WD on time and the new transmission that came with the engine that I swapped in was shorter than the original trans with the transfer case and they built the drive shaft with the donor car's drive shaft and the rear drive shaft from the Bronco. One of the shafts had a reducing place in the tube so the ends were not the same size so they welded the shaft rather than trying to find a single tube long enough and making a drive shaft from scratch. Worked fine for me. Three sons learned from their father. When the father was young and just married he was excused from being drafted to WWII because he was the only one that the local Dravo shop had that could machine the 1/4 turn locking threads on the gun barrels for the cannons on the big fighting ships. They know what they can make work rather than being told what won't work. But the shortened axle in the picture scares me. GPster