Rotted axle tubes.

dr pepper

New Member

Posts

1,438

Location

lancashire

• Jul 14, 2009

• #1

One of the rear axle tubes on mi series looks as though its substantially rotted, I'd say about 3mm down, and its right up against the diff (salisbury), I remembered a long time back welding on a piece of tube to a classic rear axle for the mot, is this still an acceptable practice for the mot?.
Would there be an issue if I welded a plate to both the axle tube and the diff outer casing?, as the tube has rotted right up against the diff housing.

Thanks.

 

fenby1976

New Member

Posts

1,036

Location

West Wales

• Jul 14, 2009

• #2

I wander what the diff housing on a Salisbury axle is made from? If it's cast Iron then if you weld it it's likely to crack.

 

dr pepper

New Member

Posts

1,438

Location

lancashire

• Jul 14, 2009

• #3

I think it probably is cast, I have some dissimilar metal rods that will weld steel to cast, if I was to pre heat the diff housing with a gas axe first I might get way with it, another trick some old fart showed me was to tap the cast with a 4 oz hammer whilst its cooling down, done this a few times here on old obsolete machine brake shoes.
If I patch the tube and dont weld the side butted up against the diff I'm gonna get a failiure, unless I bodge it and weld the the patch on with a gap between it and the diff and build up the area inbetween with weld.

 

Wesley Pegden

Well-Known Member

Posts

1,158

Location

Somercotes, Derbyshire.

• Jul 18, 2009

• #4

fenby1976 said:

I wander what the diff housing on a Salisbury axle is made from? If it's cast Iron then if you weld it it's likely to crack.

Click to expand...

Not if you give it a little "sympathetic" pre AND post heat and use a dissimilar electrode.

 

Davec

New Member

Posts

2,131

• Jul 18, 2009

• #5

Not sure why welding an axle case should affect an MoT

 

dr pepper

New Member

Posts

1,438

Location

lancashire

• Jul 18, 2009

• #6

Never done post heating, wanna tell me a bit more wes?.

 

Wesley Pegden

Well-Known Member

Posts

1,158

Location

Somercotes, Derbyshire.

• Jul 19, 2009

• #7

dr pepper said:

Never done post heating, wanna tell me a bit more wes?.

Click to expand...

Invariabley, dissimilar materials sometimes crack cos they cool to quickly or cos the castings a minger and ****e. A bit of post heat (gradually decreased) should do the trick if the casting is good.

It's a trick we used in fabrication particularly with materials like Chrome Moly (Chromium Molibdenum) when the jobs been welded we used to keep em warm with huge industrial electric blankets for a while.