Shock Ball Replacement

[8EL]

The axle housings that I have have the shock mounting ball cast integral with the housing ends, and had excessive wear. I machined the old ones off and installed straight shank type as follows:

I cast an aluminum block as a mounting fixture to hold the housings in the mill and drill press. The new mounting balls were pressed into a reamed hole and plug welded with 1/8" low hydrogen rod, DC straight polarity 140 amps to insure full penetration to the casting....

[Model "A" Fords]

Originally Posted by 8EL

I machined the old ones off and installed straight shank type

Are you using balls that you made or are they from a dealer? What size is the shank?

[8EL]

They are purchased, part# A-4024-S straight shank type. They also make a tapered part for housings with replaceable type, or one could machine a tapered hole to fit if they desired. The shanks on mine measured .563" which made a nice interference fit for the .5625" part. I bored to .500" and finished with a .5625" straight flute chucking reamer for a nice round hole. Then counter bored the back side to increase parent/weld metal contact. The shop vise was used to easily press them into their bores, installed height was 1.560"....

[8EL]

As usual I left out one detail, the square end of the part was shortened .250" to align with the bottom of the counter bore. As purchased, they were intended to extend about .125" for shoulder welding. In considering the area available for the weldment fillet, better penetration could be had with the use of a plug weld instead....

[bobbader]

Beautiful job !!!!!!

[8EL]

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Thanks Bob

[wrndln]

I have welded up warn shock balls and dressed then down. They turned out pretty well. I wouldn't do that with Pitman and steering arms. I don't plan to drive my vehicles a whole lot. I don't have the machine equipment like shown in the pictures. I was going to use Teflon seats, but since the balls are perfect, I will use the original brass type with grease.
Rusty Nelson

[JoeCB]

8EL, very nice work , for sure.
As a side note, that axle tube end piece is a pretty complicated piece, it is a forging or a steel casting? . If a forging, that is a tricky piece to process, i would think .
Joe B

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by JoeCB

8EL, very nice work , for sure.
As a side note, that axle tube end piece is a pretty complicated piece, it is a forging or a steel casting? . If a forging, that is a tricky piece to process, i would think .
Joe B

Joe, it is cast steel but there are two thinking playing into this. As the original poster stated, he (-like I) ream the hole to 9/16" -0.001" which gives about a 1½ thousandths of interference fit. My reamer is like worn a tad which makes my fits probably even a tad tighter. I freeze the ball and then use a propane torch to warm the surface and the replacement generally just pushes right in.

What I do a tad differently is I do not cut the length before I install them. Instead I install them first, then because I am already located on my Bridgeport, I use and 9/16th end-mill to create a counterbore, followed by removing from the mill and preheating. At that point, we fill with weld and then grind for the proper shape. I have yet to have one fail after many restorations of doing it this way.

.

[8EL]

Joe,
one sure way to identify between a casting and a forging is that the casting will have a parting line like this part. A forging will not, and edges will be rounded instead of sharp like a casting. Raw castings will often have visible pattern draft on unmachined areas of the part also. Like all manufactured parts they have manufacturing tolerances. The shank that engages the hole on mine were .563" the decimal reamer that I used bored a .5625" bore (9/16") and like I said had a .0005" interference fit that pressed in nicely both parts being at room temperature.

The counter bore that I cut was with a 60 degree chamfering bit which would facilitate in access to the back of the part and allow easy welding to the parent metal. I used a dept micrometer to measure the hole depth in the casting. Then measured the overall length of the part minus the 1.060 desired installed height, then simply subtracted .125" from the measured hole depth of the part. It came to removing .250" from the O.A.L, once pressed in then they were where they needed to be and ready to weld.

I have two mills, an newer 1.5 H.P. import, and a series 1 J head Bridgeport (my favorite), neither mill would accommodate these housings in a vertical plane which would have been much easier, as can be seen by the horizontal milling position employed to square the face of the part in preparation for boring. The problem is that the housings taper out towards the flange that bolts to the banjo and would not provide the needed clearance to the power head on the mill. What I ended up doing was remove the belt guard from my 16" Craftsman drill press, and it then just barely provided the necessary clearance needed.

Any way this process would produce a weldment that would resemble a tapered head rivet and have exceptional penetration to the part and the parent metal around the weld..... Those balls will not be going anywhere, as the joint is probably stronger than the metal is in the casting itself....

Thank you for the compliment on the job done.