For those who run a 9" ford rear end housing

Ok now i know that most of the people who are members here have newer and better equipment than we do, but i think there are probably a few people out there that still run a modified stock Ford rear end housing. about 15 years ago we took a stock truck housing, and added a back brace to it. we had a friend install new floater spindles and add a few braces here and there, and we had a floater rear end for our car. this was very common for alot of cars in that time frame. we had a new car built a couple years later, and put this rear end in the car. it worked great for 15 years....i know thats a long time.
our car has always ran like it was on a string....always went straight. the only way it would do stupid stuff is if there were a problem with the track....moisture, oil, etc. over the winter we switched our whole combination, and found alot of power over what we had. the 1st lap on the car it went out there and shook pretty good at 100 feet. the next pass we changed the clutch a little, put more power in and it started blazing the tires and moving around alot....but no shake. for the next 10 passes we attempted we couldn't get the car calmed down enough to get down the track....it always went out a 100 feet or so and got out of shape....i want to say that it "wandered". we went to a very hard hooking track for our last test session....the track was awesome.
for the 1st lap i did my normal deal, went to the line, cranked up the motor to 5500......no tree. i waited like 5 seconds....then brought the motor down. they pushed me back out of the beams, i collected myself, went back in and by this time the clutch was way too hot. i cut it loose, it picked up the front end, climbed the wheelie bar, and started shaking. i had everything but the left rear tire off the ground....clicked it and went back to the trailer to check everything out. it was dark now, and i thought we looked everything over pretty well.....i was wrong. went up to make another pass and the track was still in great shape. i did my normal deal and when i swapped feet it went about 20 feet and blazed the tires instantly, and made a little move out of the groove so i clicked it. we loaded up and headed home, disgusted!
when we went to unload the car at the shop i noticed a small puddle of rear end oil. i figured that it was a seal or something.....boy was i wrong.
all i can say is that i was a very lucky guy that i smoked the tires on the last run, this would have been very bad. the only thing holding the spindle on was a 1/4" steel tab that is 1 1/2"x3". the moral of the whole story is to check your stuff....closely. i think the reason our car was doing stupid stuff was the housing was broken inside and flexing... making the car not track straight. this housing has a sleeve in it, and 3 tig passes on it and a brace on each spindle. we were just asking it to do something that it wasn't designed to do.....please check your stuff closely.
Darren

 

the good Lord up above watches over us sometimes, glad you found it

 

I had the same thing happen. If we had not noticed the oil leaking on the inside of the wheel and made another pass, it would have been ugly. I figured this is why the wheels come off after every pass. Tire shake can do some strange things to cars.

 

I'm glad you did not get the "turtle" award on that pass. Something to keep in mind for everyone (especially those who do their own work) is brace your welds very robustly and very carefully. Notice in the pic that the weld is not broken. It broke where the HAZ (heat affected zone) cause the carbon steel to become brittle. While multiple pass welds are necessary to fill the gap, is is also important to realize that too much welding is not a good thing. Also note that too much heat during the weld process will cause problems as well. Have fun and be safe.

 

Your lucky it lasted that long,You should never butt weld the floater spindle in that way.

Darren I sent you some pictures of one we used. I could not get them on here.

Mark

 

Mark
If you read the post, he said there was a sleeve in the housing and spindle.
I don't think it would last long at all just butt welded.

 

Darren, glad you finally found the problem. Guess you'll have to sell more plug gappers. lol. seriously, good luck next year. maybe we'll see you at Norwalk.

Glenn

 

Thanks Kenny,I missed that. Ours was braced better and i sent him some pics of it.

 

Darren, I guess that answers a lot of questions that we talked about this summer. It is so weird that we can make more and more power and then one thing can cause it all to go wild. It's odd that the symptom of this was tire shake. I read the post by Dennis Taylor about his handling problems. I can't wait to hear what they find out was the problem. The more I can learn about other guys' problems the more I can apply towards mine. Dave Germain