Gusseting The Inner Knuckles

[MrShoeBoy]

I remember reading that Goatman broke the welds and spun the knuckle on his 44 after he turned and welded them. Does anybody have a pic of gussets for the inner C's? Want to chime in G? I just got done cutting down and reinstalling the inner C's on my HP 44 and dont want to have this happen so I figured I would gusset the C's since the housing is out on the bench.

Thanks,

AARON

 

[tealcherokee]

weld it better than he did?

 

[OT]

weld it better than he did?

x2

 

[gcam]

With FSJ's there is a problem of spinning a model 20 axle tube in the differential housing. The simple fix I've heard off before is just notching the tube and the housing and filling them with weld, and then continuing the weld all the way around the tube. Would something like this work for you on your front axle?

 

[Dirk Pitt]

With FSJ's there is a problem of spinning a model 20 axle tube in the differential housing. The simple fix I've heard off before is just notching the tube and the housing and filling them with weld, and then continuing the weld all the way around the tube. Would something like this work for you on your front axle?

That's like a 9" centersection.

I don't think you would gain much linear weld area on the knuckle.

 

[Root Moose]

Why not dupe what Currie does with some of there housings? I wasn't able to find a pic at their web site; it's just a sort of half "C" that is welded to the axle C and the tube.

Or are we talking about something else?

 

[MrShoeBoy]

You have the right idea Moose. I removed the inner knuckles in order to shorten the housing down to waggy size or about 61" WMS to WMS from the 65" of the full size. I read in a previous post that Goatman broke the welds holding the inner knuckle to the axle tube. He attributed the failure partly to not enough weld and also to the fact he was jumping his XJ with 37s. I dont want to have the same thing happen to me so I wanted to see how he added the gusset simmilar to the Currie ones.

So does anybody have a currie front end they want to post pictures of?

AARON

 

[Root Moose]

I may have a copy of an image somewhere. I've got about 10GB of various car and truck "pr0n" here but you think any of it would be quickly searchable?

 

[XJ_ranger]

I may have a copy of an image somewhere. I've got about 10GB of various car and truck "pr0n" here but you think any of it would be quickly searchable?

sounds like you need to dedicate a weekend and fill Billy's servers at XJDB and help the rest of us out...

 

[Jeff 98XJ WI]

Something I was thinking about yesterday is why not weld the C to the tube on the end of the tube as well as on the inside portion of the C? Anybody do this? Any reasons why not to...other than it would be a real bitch to remove the C later on? Jeff

 

[Root Moose]

sounds like you need to dedicate a weekend and fill Billy's servers at XJDB and help the rest of us out...

Multi GBs over the satelite link would really suck.

Billy probably has ~95% of the stuff I have. What little doesn't overlap would probalby be pretty tame stuff that I have specific reasons for snarfing.

Btw, I did try to find the image but couldn't find it.

 

[XJ_ranger]

Something I was thinking about yesterday is why not weld the C to the tube on the end of the tube as well as on the inside portion of the C? Anybody do this? Any reasons why not to...other than it would be a real bitch to remove the C later on? Jeff

wondered about that as well...

there might be an issue with shaft yoke ears hitting the bead if you threw too much in there, but i really couldnt think of a drawback...

i did not weld mine on the outside of the knuckle, though i might someday

 

[cccj]

my Currie 44-9

 

[MrShoeBoy]

Thanks a lot cccj! Thats the exact photo I am looking for. :cheers:

AARON

 

[bj-666]

wondered about that as well...

there might be an issue with shaft yoke ears hitting the bead if you threw too much in there, but i really couldnt think of a drawback...

i did not weld mine on the outside of the knuckle, though i might someday

when i rotated the knuckles on my 44 i tacked it on, on teh outside the ears hit pretty hard and would have been a pain if i had welded it all the way around the welds would have to be ground a lot

 

[RalphXJ]

Here is what my front 44 looks like. The shocks also mount to the support as will my limiting straps if I descide to use them.

 

[Goatman]

That's a good pic of the Currie brace......something that I think we should all use. There has to be a reason that all the top axle builders use a brace like that. It's hard to tell how good my welds were, while they did fail, they also didn't look bad. I do know that I didn't have a weld bead as wide as the ones on the Currie axles that I've looked at since, and I didn't have the brace.

I also believe there is a reason they put the brace on the bottom. While the inner C on one side broke loose, the weld was cracked for a couple of inches on the very bottom of the other side inner C. That is very likely how the broken side started, and it would not have happened with those braces like Currie and other builders use.

Of course, Currie builds housings to withstand very hard use. I didn't break mine rockcrawling, I broke it hauling ass and jumping over rough terrain and after a particularly hard jump. Last weekend on Fordyce Trail I broke the sector shaft on the steering box, and looking at the broken shaft it was already cracked about 40% through. I'm sure that damage was done the same time that I broke off the inner C.

 

[cyrus]

The contact surfaces of the axle tube and the inner c must be truly cylindrical and provide a press fit of about 2-3 thousanths of an inch. This will provide a stout mate between the two components, thus allowing the weld and press fir to share the loads seen on that location. Yes the ends are welded on the face as well as on the corner between tube and c, from the factory and any good axle builder.

 

[BrettM]

Last weekend on Fordyce Trail I broke the sector shaft on the steering box, and looking at the broken shaft it was already cracked about 40% through. I'm sure that damage was done the same time that I broke off the inner C.

what kind of trail fix did that take?

 

[Goatman]

what kind of trail fix did that take?

Two guys going back the 7 miles to get a spare steering box that I had in my trailer. Otherwise, I'd have been calling some of you guys looking for someone with a spare box.

We did some interesting wheeling while they were gone, decided to move on down the trail to find a good camp spot next to the river. We put a small loop of chain around each of the steering arms, then hooked the winch to which ever side needed to be pulled. We moved 1/3 to 1/2 mi down the trail steering my rig with the winch, while I just sat inside and worked the throttle.