Cracks In My Rear
 

This message title should get some attention!

Seriously though, Roscoe, PNJSnak or anyone else out there that may have been watching the "Vibrations at speed" message here, I need help on what to do. In that thread I believe PNJSnak mentioned something about cracks in the rearend housing as supplied by A&C. I had replied that I saw no evidence of any such thing on mine, well lady luck hit me over the weekend and now I have uncovered TWO cracks in mine. I may have missed these before as I had a pretty bad transmission leak that I had recently repaired and figured that the oil around the rearend was from that. While I had it up in the air over this past week I cleaned everything up real well so I had no more oil on anything not paying attention to the color of the oil. Sunday evening after putting about 100 or so miles on him I noticed an oil spot under the rearend while sitting in the garage. Last night I lifted the back off the ground to see what was happening and found two areas of the rear axle housing that were saturated with fresh oil not transmission fluid. Upon inspection with a mirror and light I have found that I have two cracks in the axle housing, one is in the rear of the "Pig" where a cover would be if it were a GM axle, the other is located in the top section of the axle tube where the rearend was cut and welded back together for shortening.

I looked back at the "Vibrations" thread and Roscoe said a friend had a problem like this and Joe replaced it. Input on how to approach this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

John

Options
 

As I see it, ya got two options.

Pull the rear and replace it.

Arc weld the cracks with the vent open. If they are along the center part of the bango.

If you can not weld, take it to a rear end shop and let them weld it.

cracks are generally a sign of excessive stress. I have heard of guys welding donuts around the tubes and across the bango to prevent this. I personally have not seen this myself.

Hope you get this fixed without more fun and excitement.

Trularin
:3DSMILE:

John,
I would call Joe and *****. I would also mention that the subject was discussed on the CC forum and you know some others had a problem with the rears. If you want the name of the guy I talked about just email me.

Roscoe

John: Sorry, I even broght this subject up, but I thought it would be best to warn all the A & C guys and others with 9" rears.
I call Joe and asked what to do. He said take out the rear end and bring it or ship it and he would fix it. I really don't want to take the rear end out if at all possible.
I am setting up a time for a local guy here in Cleveland area to "cold weld" it with a mig welder. He said all we have to do is drain the oil below the level of the axle tubes, grind the cracked area to get sufficient penetration and weld it.
I am still driving it but not abusing the rear. Sure would like to put it off till this winter so I could take it all out and sandblast the entire rear end and have the entire unit magnafluxed for any additional cracks and then get it professionally welded and stress relieved. Before doing that ofcourse, look at the costs for repair vs new unit.
Let me know if you talk to Joe and what he says to you. Okay.
Jim

PNJSNAK and all who are interested,

This is the first poor report that I have had with A&C.

Joe told me to take pictures of the cracks and send them to him with the areas marked where the cracks are at or to remove the assembly and have it truck freighted to him in Buffalo and he will either repair or replace it. This would be very expensive for me and probably wouldn't be worth it since Moser Engineering is less than 45 minutes away and I could just have them build new tubes and put it back together (Minus the extra welds) and probably still have less than $200 in it.

I mentioned to him that one of the cracks is in the weld in the center of the axle tube and he said that he didn't remember that ever being done on their axle housings.

If you are an A&C owner and can look at your rear axle assembly, please do me a favor and look to see if you have welds around the center of the tube other than the welds that are for the control arm mounts. Also if you are able to, please snap a picture of the welds and post them to this thread and state approximately how old your original kit is. It almost seems like Joe may not know for sure how his axle housings are being made.

I spoke with some people here at work that have been personally involved with several BIG NAME racers like John Lingenfelter, and the Moser family from Moser Engineering (Moser axle assemblies) which by the way are both right here in my back yard, and they stated that if the tube had been cut in the center that it was done incorrectly.

I will be taking the car to Advanced Chassis in Antwerp, Ohio soon for their input. I will try to remember to let you all know the outcome of that meeting.

Like I stated at first, this is the first time that I have felt I needed to post a somewhat bad review about A&C. I am for the most part very happy with the overall kit.

PS...Please post pictures of rear housing if possible, this would help bunches.

Thank you.
John

John,
The name I gave you via email had his rear crack on the shortening welds, the weld that goes around the axle tube. This happened either last year or the year before and Joe replaced it with a new unit. I gave you his number in NJ. Give him a call toward the end of the week as he is up at The Glen for racing.
Roscoe

Roscoe,

Will do later in week, right now I'm just trying to get some more info until then.:)

Thank you.

John

Hi John Do your self a favor and get swracecars.com a call. They sell a rear brace kit for big and small 9" rearends. Pull the rearend drain it and let them add the bracing to it. You can buy a bottom brace also. Have the inside and out side welded at the cracks, drill 1/8 inch holes to stop the cracks. You will never have a cracking problem again with the housing. If you want to go stronger and lighter check out Currie engineering. They make a custom rear that are stronger. The latter 9" rears don't have the good metal the older ones had. There is a lite duty and heavy duty 9" rear. If you are buying one look for one out of a truck F250 The center housing where stronger or a sationwagon full size with a big block. Hope this helps Rick Lake

Rick,

I will look into this, I was not aware that there were different 9" housings as far as material that is.

Ya' learn something everyday and then you go home.

I guess I can go home now. Whew, that was one of my shortest work days ever.

Thank you.
John

John: did you see my original Pic I posted under Crack in Diff Case. Bob Putnam enhanced it but had the crack marked in the wrong place. The crack runs from the center area large diameter where it steps up to a smaller diameter out to the first welded area of the axle tube and brackets and is about 6" long. It is directly under the gray RTV material and runs horizontally on centerline. This is the only area where there seems to liquid coming from.
Can you take some pics of your crack areas and post them here.
I am thinking about asking (suggesting) Joe at A & C ship me out a new unit and I will install it and ship him back the one I have.
Jim

PNJSNAK,

I can take shots of one of the cracks for sure. It is in the rear of the housing where a rear cover would be if the 9" had one. The other one is on the top of the right axle tube in the weld area in the center of the tube where they narrowed it. I can try to snap a shot of that one but am not sure if I can get it or not due to where it is at.

I will look back at the other thread to see if I can find it.

I am scheduled to take the car to Advanced Chassis in Antwerp, Ohio this afternoon if the weather holds out.

Thank you.
John

FORD 9 IN REAR END
 

John

Pull the rear end out ,send it to Joe.Stop taking advice from people who want to sell you something .Mig welds are not good penetration welds.Those are the welds that are on there now.Save yourself a lot of aggravation dealing with these other people.Joe sent me a new Curry rear end of problem.I do this for a living so I speak from experience.

tommachine73@yahoo.com

John:
Is someone trying to sell you something!!!! I got mine welded up today. Looks great, painted and all, even had a drain plug installed in the botom of the pumkin. When the guy ground out the crack to both welded ends, he found where the weld blew away material and weakened the area where the cope and drag part of the casting meet. That is where my crack started from, the weld on the cover to the weld of the tube and bracket. It was the weld at the tube and bracket that caused the failure.
Anyway, I still plan to address this with Joe.
Sure, just yank out the rear end and just send it to him or just drop it off and he will weld it up.
What did you find out in Antwerp?
He just replaced it with a Currie? There must be more to the story. He gets these rear ends from John's Industries or something like that. Why not from Currie to begin with? TOO many$$$. That's why. I'd rather spend a little more for better quality if I were given the opportunity to choose. Hint.
Anyways, do what you think is best for you. One certainly knows more after the fact.
Jim

Good Morning All,

Tommachine,
Joe wanted me to disassemble the thing and ship it to him but I wanted to have someone look at it first. That's why I took it to Advanced Chassis, and am glad I did. I found out after putting it up on a lift and having full access to everything that there is not a crack in any of the welds on the tubes so I am good to go. My leak on the tube is coming from the vent that was installed. Easy fix, install a different kind of vent that won't allow the oil out. There is however a crack in the rear of the center section part of the housing in one of the factory weld, also an easy fix, gring it down and reweld it.

One of my other problems was that I have been having a problem with bottoming out in the rear suspension. Ken from Advanced looked at the geometry and decided that the rearend housing must have been twisted in the jig when the control arm brackets were welded to the housing causing my pinion to point up at about a 7 degree angle causing the pig to contact the crossmember in that area. I have been trying to get my ride height set right and have had to settle for a more hot rod style rake with the rearend lifted up so that I didn't bottom. I discussed this with Ken (from Advanced and he asked me to have Joe call him and he could explain what was going on from a professional standpoint. Ken convinced Joe that in order to correct this problem easily that I would have to install a set of adjustable control arms to roll the rear housing down. Joe promptly offered to send me a set of their adjustables, so they should be on their way today.

Also Ken from Advanced said that the housing that is used on my car is a thin wall and under strain can create stress cracks in certain conditions, he said that the easiest/cheapest way to correct that is to fab up some reinforcements for the rear of the housing/tube assembly and weld it in place so that it goes side to side in a horizontal plane. while I have my rear out to reweld the crack, I will be building up this structure and installing it.

On a very good note, Ken at Advanced looked the car over and seemed to be pretty impressed with the overall product of A&C.

Roscoe,

The pinion angle on mine after I changed my rear crossmember, raising the tailshaft of the transmission approx. 2.5" was still at 5 degree angle from tailshaft to propshaft and 7 degree from propshaft to pinion causes excessive u-joint movement. By installing these adjustable control arm I can dial this angle down to a more acceptable angle.

Thanks again to all,

John

My rear leaked from the vent also. Just install a hose over it and run the hose up like the vent on the fuel tank. Problem goes away.

As far as bottoming out, this seems to be a problem with A&C and the chassis thing I mentioned earlier. I believe the new chassis's are slightly different than the older ones and the control arms do not reflect this. I installed adjustable uppers in order to bring the pinion down to about 2-3 degrees. The Cobra should have a slight rake to it naturally but not real great, like an inch or so.

By the way, Tommachine is the guy I mentioned to you in a private email. He owns a machine shop.

Roscoe

Roscoe,

I did not know Tommachine was the individual you spoke of, now I do. Great input but Joe has already decided not to do anything for me except send me the adjustable uppers and lowers. Not a big deal as I have already had to cut a lot of the car apart to correct things that didn't fit correctly, at least from my anal Engineers veiwpoint.

As far as the hose idea, that is exactly what Ken from Advanced told me to do too.

The rake thing bothers me though because to keep the front to rear rake looking good and not excessive, I had to raise the front end to where I have about 1.5"-2" between the wheel well and tire and it looks kind of retarded. Oh well, with the adjustables hopefully I will be able to get him down to a more ground hugging height.

Thanks again.

John

Don't worry, those adjustables will take care of everything. One thing I was thinking of changing is going from a 50 series tire on the rear to a 60 like I have on the front.

http://www.priveye.com/pocono/roscoe2.jpg

Roscoe

Roscoe,

Thanks for the positive input. As stated before I have done a lot of rework on him (due to whatever) and have not really had much enjoyment time yet. I do have about 700 miles on him but this has been mostly "test and tune" miles. I have taken one trip this past weekend to a Fifties style drive up restaurant, now that was fun and I managed to avoid all the "Is it real" questions. This will be a great car once all the little bugs are handled and I can get on to the upgrades.

Thanks again to all who have given input, it is what has kept me sane.

John

John,

Just one last reply to your problem.I think in my case my situation was different.The two tubes that are welded to the housing actually broke in half .This was due to poor welding techniques from Johns industries .I belive Joe has not used them in a few years.In regards to the pumpkin hitting the upper crossmember I had the same problem.I made my self a set of 2 inch aircraft tubing for links works fine.Joe's set up turns the housing to far upward.Glad to hear your problem solved.

Regards

Tom

Rear ends
 

John Poling John I am gald you have fixed the car the best that is can be repaired rightnow. In the winter you may want to look into a different rear for your car. Is a mustang rear in your car uncut? I am not familiar with an A/C car. SWRACECARS makes a bracket kit for the back of the rearend, both size tubes. If you are getting the Cobra racing bug bad, Do this to this rear and save for a Currie rear with 35 spline axles, alum center and disc brakes. Price is about 3500.00$ but you will never break this rear. I am not trying to sell you anything. I have learned from others that break cars and make notes. I go racing to race, not rebuild a car in the garage area. I have helped the last 4 years at RUN&GUN trans R&R last year, Electrical rewiring the year befor and a Jag rearend center the year before that. I also pulled the motor in the Dragon 2 1/2 times with John Chestnut because the hydro throwout bearing keep leaking on the clutch. Make your car BULLETPROOF and enjoy racing, not rebuilding ;) Rick Lake