todays video we spent almost an hour diving into axle housings. let us know what we missed or what kind of video you want to see next! head over to our website for more info on all of our products: motorsports.74...
Great video. I cant say that enough. Lots of good clean technical information. One thing I want to add . The JK "end forging" being weak is an issue, but............BUUUUT a lot of so called bent "inner C's" are probably not really bent. The axle tube is really weak as well, and having the spring perch where it is creates a nice shear plain thus the tube bents right there. I bet almost every JK that see's trail time has some deformation in this area. I know personally 5 or so Jeep buddies who went to sleeve, and truss their axels noticed the housing bent right there. So for you JK folks if you gusset the "C" make sure its also welded to the tube, and perch really well. Those " Dino" C gussets are trash for this reason.
I completely agree and favor the Ford 9”. I emailed Curry asking if they were planning to do a bolt in 9” for 6G Broncos and they said no. They have a Dana 60 for it and it has an electric locker. I’d rather have a 9” with a Detroit locker for my use, especially since I have a lot of 9” parts already.
@@bobmeyer7309 I agree. The reason that they don’t push the 9” more is just because of cost. It’s just a lot more expensive to do a proper built 9” but yeah. I’m with you on this one as well
Guys, thanks for the deep dive, valuable tech! Q: For remote expedition work applications what is the potential fail point of your Portals front , Portals rear? say JL. Reason for Q is ; what spare portal components would one carry and in what order of priority. Stating the obvios that weightGVM is always a factor and clearly in your custom portal case availability of replacement components whilst remote is gonna be near zero around self recovery. Thanks in advance; CB
We have seen one broken part to date. We had a race car last year at KOH twist off a 35 spline stub as the stub does not see gear reduction. This was partly our fault as it had a snap ring in the torsion zone but this is also how all Dana 60 front ends were built for decades. Either way, we have since changed that, eliminated the stress riser, and have not seen a failure since. Want to carry spares? You could carry a full gear set, bearing set, and stub. In our experience, even if you explode a gear set inside a portal, the bearing surfaces are typically not damaged and you can replace internals and be back up and running. If you are really going to do some crazy remote expedition and want to run portals, you can come see us and we can train you how it all works and what a trail catastrophe would look like and what you would need. We have never seen it happen but prepare for the worst and you will be ready for anything 😉
Excellent video! Hotchkiss style is what the "drop out" third member style axle setup is generally called. Both these and the Salisbury style have been around in recognizable form since the 1910's
Dana does not weld the tubes around the end of the cast center section for good reason. It makes me shudder to see so many people (and professionals) weld around the tubes at this point. Ductile iron castings contain excess carbon in graphite form, either nodules (nodular or spheroid) or lattice flake (pearitic). Welding to these castings disrupts this structure, bringing the graphite / carbon into the mix in the weld zone and creating a hard brittle area / weak spot. These iron castings are not steel, and Dana and other axle manufacturers spent a lot of effort to get the heat treat right. Crazy to see these people actually weaken a perfectly good housing by doing this !! Even more nuts is the aftermarket housing assemblers doing it !!
It can be done if welded correctly and needs to be done for extreme use. Requires pre-heat and high-nickel rods. Stress relieved during and after weld process and slow cool. I frequently weld cast iron at my job with CAT. Becoming a lost art. Definitely shouldn’t be mig welded by the average joe. That being said, Welding a truss across the top connecting the axle tubes to each other without welding to the ductile iron center casting is a better idea for the average welder. But should be checked for straightness afterwards and straightened if necessary by heat and cool on opposite side of the welded tubes
I seen a bunch of the jl axle break at the fad casting. Few guys hit something solid while traveling to fast. They deleted the 2 piece shaft in 24 and just put a cover plate over.
I saw on your website that the currie F9 was an optional axles set up, I was wondering would your portals work with the Miller Motorsports Spidertrax axles for the JK?
@@74weld that what i had seen through looking at your website but i was wondering if i had a built housing and put some Reid racing Ford knuckles basically a Ford 609 with some Dynatrac ball joints this could theoretically work.
