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Welding axle flange to change pcd


flyingbrick

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Ok so I have the axles out of my 9". I'm prepared to buy new ones in the correct pcd but if I can save money safely then that's a bonus.

I'm interested as to how safely the existing stud holes could be tig welded and the pcd re drilled. The machine work and welding is not a problem, just simply the legitness of the act.

Can anyone see any issues? Any advice much appreciated.

Plan (assuming its not a huge nono) is to weld up the holes, machine the face true and flat in the lathe then drill new pcd.

Edit.

No, there is not enough material spare to just offset the pcd and drill new holes. These axles have big access holes in the flange that fuck that idea.

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I've done this before. I dunno how legit it is but there would be heaps of axles around with a different PCD than their respective OEM gave them. I've done a fair few Hilux ones and 9 inch ones. The Ford has 3 holes between the existing studs, aye? 1 bigger one and 2 nearly as big ones. The 2 smaller ones weld up and the bigger one gets a plug welded in prior to facing the lot off. I've welded up the big hole before but it puts a fair bit of heat (flange warping type of heat) into the flange I have found. Maybe this is just me but you'll see what i mean if you try it. I stick the first hole through the plug and this usually allows 3 of the other 4 holes to go through unfucked with flange steel. The last one (your mileage may vary) and there is always one, lol! Will be very close to a weld and probably into it a bit. I use colbalt and slow feed/speed to help going through this half and half bit of flange. You'll need to have a decent setup for doing justice to the new PCD. Something accurate and rigid. Heaps of guys have used a rotor (or real rough cunts - a rim) to locate the new holes. This is ok if you intend to run hubcentric wheels ... but can show itself up if you are a little bit off and you end up using rims that are located by the studs and not the hub. The reasons are self explanatory. 

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for the work in welding and drilling them it would have to be marginal vs. new axles for a 9"  I would think. it sounds easy but you could easily spend a whole day on it. what do new axles cost, could probably sell the old ones for some amount too?

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for the work in welding and drilling them it would have to be marginal vs. new axles for a 9"  I would think. it sounds easy but you could easily spend a whole day on it. what do new axles cost, could probably sell the old ones for some amount too?

Yip, you hit the nail on the head ... sounds easy but you could easily spend a day + doing a pair. If you want to get any sense of accuracy in the work then bench setups, dot punches and hand held drills are out of the question. You'll need a decent setup along the lines of hanging your axle off the front or rear of a mill table that is equipped with a DRO or friggin good hand dials. You'll forsake any previous setups and tramming when you swing the turret around to hover over the axle flange. Then you'll need to fuck around with your co-axial DTI to center everything up whilst hoping you have enough working height so as to be able to use the long indicator extension. Failure to get enough height will force you to use the short extension on the taper of the factory center drill hole - an act you always felt dodgy doing, lol!

And this is all after you have whispered to your lathe the word 'sorry' a thousand times as it shudders and jolts under the strain of interrupted cutting brought on by the now hardened weld material that you filled up the previously used wheel stud holes. You did your best to remove as much of this material as you could with your trusty angle grinder prior to chucking it up ... yeah sounds easy :))) lol!    

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^ i have never understood why turrets mills are popular/common, on a horizontal+universal head everything is literaly 500x easier. i lumbered myself with the former only because it was for sale 500m down the road & cry everytime a dirt cheap hori comes up on tm as no cunt ever wants them/has realised how much better they are.

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^ i have never understood why turrets mills are popular/common, on a horizontal+universal head everything is literaly 500x easier. i lumbered myself with the former only because it was for sale 500m down the road & cry everytime a dirt cheap hori comes up on tm as no cunt ever wants them/has realised how much better they are.

It might be because of the overhead gantry you need to lift that big arsed indexhead to re position it in order to present the axle flange to the spindle, lol. The indexer weighs as much as it does because its a substantial piece of iron due to it having a bore big enuff to take a reasonable size axle through its guts ... but yeah mate - agree. they go for not much more than scrap value which is a shame. I jumped on a HMT FN2U off TM a few years back and have it set up solely to do respline work. Its a rigid piece for sure and I love using it. I never tried using the turret for doing it (resplining) but after watching Youtube clips of respline work being carried out on Verticals - decided a dedicated Horizontal was a much more rigid set up that could be had for not a lot.

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