Rear Axle Rebuild

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2012: Rear Axle Rebuild
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Neil Kaminar on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 09:45 am:

My friend Steve bought a 1915 touring car that was supposedly “tour ready.” The owner said that the rear end was professionally built. I helped Steve with his purchase and I am helping him with repairing the car where needed. We did a safety check, including removing the wheels and hubs. What we found indicated that a complete rebuild of the rear axle would be required. There were other issues, but this article is about rebuilding the rear axle.

Here is what we found:

1. The bolts holding the McLaren wheels were not tight. One was completely loose and backed off. Most were finger tight.

2. The nuts holding the hubs on the axles were not tight, causing the axles, keys, and hubs to wear. New hubs and axles were required. Since the car has Rocky Mountain brakes, with the original brake drums also installed, we bought axles with the extended length to help clear the two drums. We bought used hubs that are in excellent shape. We also bought new keys and nuts.

3. The old hubs had destroyed the outer grease seals as well as the inner surface of the hubs. We elected to buy modern outer seals, as well as new modern inner seals.

4. The parking brake shoe on the right side as well as both Rocky Mountain bands were well oiled and worn. The parking brake on the left side was missing. We elected to buy new shoes and have the bands relined. Steve bead blasted all the parts and painted them in his spray room.

5. When we took the differential case apart, we found worn pinion and ring gears. They looked like they had been new or good parts when installed but not installed with the proper alignment. The differential was not safety wired correctly. See photos below. Steve bought a ring and pinion set, standard ratio.



6. Bronze thrust washer were installed but one was worn over 0.050. We think this is what caused the pinion and ring gears to wear. The car was reported to have only 4,000 miles on an axle rebuild. I don’t know how the thrust washer could have worn so much in just 4,000 miles. We bought new thrust washers. We set up the new ring and pinion for proper backlash and alignment by temporally assembling just the left side of the axle and the drive shaft. This is a neat trick and allowed us to check the pattern on the gears using a thick grease. We used all new gaskets. There were NO gaskets in the axle when we took it apart.

7. The spider was well worn, so we replaced it with a new one. The differential gears were good. We replaced the bad universal joint with a new one and adjusted the drive shaft clearance.

8. Removing the old gears from the ends of the axles and pressing them on the new axles was quite an experience. One gear refused to move. Instead, the axle was bending. We had to saw the axle to a short stub. We found a destroyed key and scored axle, see photo below. I don’t know how this could have happened unless someone assembled the gear incorrectly sometime in the past. I was able to clean up the hole in the gears and we were able to press them on the new axles without problems. As many of you know, you have to press the gear on, install the split ring keepers, and then press the gear against the keepers.



9. The used hubs fit on the new axles without hitting the seal or backing plate. However, the bolts used for the wire wheels have a thicker head than the nuts for the wood wheel hub bolts. This and the two drums caused the heads of the bolts to interfere with the new brake shoes. We solved this by grinding a little of the brake shoes where the cam is. The new parts are shown in the photo below.



We are waiting for the relined bands to come in before we button it up and go for a ride.

Here is a photo of Steve’s workshop with his 59 Austin Healey and 47 Chevy that he restored, as well as my dog Lucy.

Neil


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Neil Kaminar on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 10:16 am:

I forgot to add the new bearing sleeves and used bearings to replace the brearings with the loose cages. The sleeves were probably OK but we elected to replace the sleeves while we were at it.

Neil


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steve Jelf, Parkerfield KS on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 10:26 am:

Terms like restore and rebuild mean lots of different things to different people. I've been fixing a lot of things on the "restored" touring I bought a few years ago.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By lorenzo leon on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 02:43 pm:

I had a problem with a axle that the gear could not go into ,it bent the axle and scored the gear.. bad called the vendor and got a new axle n/c
I think that before you drive in the gear make sure the axle is not made wrong and too thick where the gear goes..measure the original then measure the new axle
Lorenzo


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Neil Kaminar on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 04:14 pm:

Lorenzo

Good advice. That could have been the problem with the old axle.

I measured all the parts before assembly. All the parts were correct, fit well, and went together correctly.

Neil


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