MTFCA Forum

In the last week to month I glanced at a post on how to straighten axle housing by making a tool that is inserted into the center section bearing housing.
I did not read it at the time but am very interested in reading it and evaluating if it might be something I want to consider for my own use, but I can not find the posting.

Can someone provide me a link to the post or tell my why it may have been deleted?

Thank you,
Terry

Hey Terry, Shade-tree mechanics at its best !
I think you mean this jury-rigged thing i built using some scraps of tubing i had laying around in the shop, it might not be the best way to do it, but it was the only way for me as i did not have a lathe big enough for the job or a good hydraulic press.
the tube fits really snug in the old bearing sleeve, and the big square tube is only welded on one side so it can change its angle relative to the smaller square tubing, i used a hydraulic puller as a press and a piece of angle iron under the axle so it would only bend where i wanted it.
I used the acetylene torch sparingly to heat and quench while keeping pressure on the whole setup.
I carefully measured the distance top and bottom between the flange of the diff and the backing plate to check if it was close to straight.
It was not 100% straight after but close enough, about a tenth inch out, which can be corrected with tightening the radius rod some.
Good luck trying !

Oops upside down, don't know how to correct this sorry

HI ; I did a number of axels like this ;
Toon

Some more pictures ;

ABoer, Brillant! Thanks for posting.

Hank

I made a faceplate similar to the one shown above... with a register on one face and a groove on the other, it registers either housing side by simply flipping it over.

I’ve never heated the whole tube up as shown above... but small nickel sized areas and air quenched to shrink. The tube moves far more than one would expect! A bit tricky as you need to let the tube stabilize in temperature before shrinking the next point. But as most things T related... patience is key

Impressive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnlCCugAC3Y

Housing straightening, real time

Thank you everyone. It is nice to have all of these methods in one place.

Terry

Terry, great methods by Toon Boer and Scott too, but mine was bent too much to repair with just heat/quench cycles like Scott's, and my lathe is not big enough to do it like Toon Boer, so i had to think of an alternative, while not ideal it worked !
Good luck on your housing,
Leo

Just for clairification, I only posted the video but had nothing to do with it's creation and can take no credit for it. I believe it is one of our other posters, though I do not know which one.