After much thought and tinkering, I got them out. And it was FUN too!! (in my best Bevis voice: FFFIIIIRREE)

I had suggestions of Cobalt drills and masonry bits. FYI, masonry bits DO NOT work, yes the are carbide, but they have a completely different cutting profile for drilling steel. And Cobalt bits are $$.

I started with the idea someone gave of heating and annealing the welds with a torch and then drilling them with standard bits. I fired up my rose-bud tip and went at it. 1/2 way through I decided to just try my cutting torch and see if I could burn it out. To my surprise, with a little work, I was able to quite cleanly cut through the weld and the axle tube!!

I found that if I used the torch to carefully cut away some of the inner diameter of the axle tube, blowing through was even easier. Also helped to move from weld to weld, keeping the heat in the housing.

Cut all the welds and was able to "easily" drive the axle tube stubs out with a chunk of steel rod.


Piece of cake, over all, probably took little over and hour and probably less next time......

-mark

another showing the toys I used. The silver pice of pipe is a drop if 3" rigid conduit I used as a stand to drive the slugs out into.

Not shown, obviously the torch.

must have missed something why did you do that? Are you getting larger tubes?:eek:

I got a hankering for some swiss cheese now!

sorry forgot to put that in :rolleyes:


Ford HP D44 front getting re-tube for a passenger side drop. Seen a couple of write-ups on doing it, but there is always a "gray" area around getting the old tubes out.


NO, I couldn't just cut down the long side, the tubes were already cut off at the housing.


this will be the next axle for my Scout :D :D (hmmm, mayeb I shoufl finish the current one.... :p )

Originally posted by GloNDark
I got a hankering for some swiss cheese now!


:D looks like it. But actualy the holes aren't much larger than they would have been had I drilled them... they just arn't as pretty.



thats what welders are for when I put it back together:D

cool