MTFCA Forum

"Did you hear something ?"
"Nope, just keep driving..."

That one is really interesting.

Notice that the housing AND axle shaft is broken.

The only way I could see that happening is if the housing was broken for some amount of time and then the axle shaft finally failed due to the flexing. There would have been oil leaking out (at least until the differential was empty), and excessive gear noises prior to the failure, and obviously they kept driving it that way!

About eight years ago Lee told me he had welded an axle in a Tudor. I must admit I assumed he meant the axle shaft, of course I was wrong, it was the housing.
Some month later I saw the car and indeed Lee had welded the axle housing with it all still in the car. Personally I would not have attempted such a repair, replacing the housing a much better option in my opinion. However the Tudor is still running around San Diego, complete with the welded housing.

I have seen that picture before (and like seeing it again!). It is fascinating to wonder about it. Something unusual must have started that extensive failure. I can't really see an axle failure causing that. I would expect the housing was somehow fractured and ran offset causing the axle to break. At low speeds, something like that could conceivably run for hundreds of miles held together by the axle itself. Also, at low speeds, the grinding and misalignment noises wouldn't necessarily be very loud. Someone in those days could very likely have had no clue something was wrong until it let go.

Zooming in close doesn't give much more for clues to the breakage. The license plate appears to be Ontario 1922. The car does have front door hinges, so a Canadian built car. The top sockets look like earlier oval style, later three lights on the rear of the top. Also, notice the clamping style rests for the top when lowered. The windshield is straight (Canadian cars went to a slanted windshield about late 1920), and appears to have a rear view mirror mounted onto the hinge bolts! Clearly a non-starter, non-demountable car (square wood fellies), but not much to speculate whether the car could be a late '17 or '18, or later '19 or '20 without the options.

A wonderful photo to say the least! Thank you Dave H for posting.

As we say in “Tin-A-See”..., “Comes complete with an Alabama Warranty. If it breaks in half, you get to keep both halves”.

All the Best,

Hank

Today, many would say it is Trump's fault.

I'm on the no lube side here...
I don't see a greasy spot anywhere. Maybe the inner Hyatt chewed through the tube ?

The bottom of the pic has 1920 written in. The car is probably earlier than that, I would guess.

That differential probably had grease in it that is why there is no oil on the ground. I also noticed the right top saddle is upside down.

It seems that the right wheel is quite a distance away from the axle backing plate.

Perhaps the axle hasn't broken but rather has just pulled out of the differential far enough to stress the axle housing to the point of breaking?

This looks like the axle gear retainer had worn enough to allow the axle shaft to pull out of the gear. Putting a side load (turning a corner) caused the axle, wheel, drum etc to pull outwards putting enough pressure on the housing rivets to cause them to shear. As soon as the axle housing tube pulled out beyond the length of factory insertion the rear axle dropped. It doesn't look like the housing actually broke in two to me. My 2 cents worth.....