then it was welded with stitch welds jumping from one side to the other. It was interesting how much the heat affected the housing because in the early stages of welding, jumping from side-to-side the heat would bind up the cylinder ram. Jumping to the other side would free it up. This movement got less and less as more area was welded. By progressing slowly and checking often, the ram was spinning free at the end. The reason this is so important is if the third member bearings are not in perfect alignment with the axle bearings it will put constant pressure/stress on the axles and bearings. Another culprit could be the use of highly reversed rim offsets in conjunction with large tires that are transferring the higher torque loads of today’s more powerful engines. Combine this with wheel spacers and the additional leverage applied to the axle is greatly increased. One last consideration is if you are using one of the popular early Ford 9-inch rearends from the late ‘50s these parts are now nearly 70 years old. In that life span, the axle bearings and their retainer rings may have been excessively heated or beat upon during replacement causing unnoticed damage. After this discussion maybe we’ll hear back from some of our other readers who’ve experienced the ‘Axle Blues’ and their thoughts. I’m sure the incident was a surprise for both Louie and your daughter, but thankfully neither were injured.—ED
rodders were doing a little off roading but afraid to admit it, there are a few other reasons that come to mind. First, if these rearends were originally purchased from a salvage yard, or as a new ‘bare’ housing, bracketry work that required welding (even something as simple as shock brackets) to install the rearend may have warped the housing ever so slightly. I included a photo of the process I went through to narrow and add brackets to a rearend using an early Ford housing with tapered axle tubes mated to 9-inch Ford axle bearing retainers. I used a five-foot section of a hydraulic cylinder ram along with turned aluminum stock to fit over the ram and into the axle bearing retainers and the main differential carrier bearing bores inside the housing. This aligned everything and
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