First thing that was required was to remove the entire rear end of the drive line.
Jack up the car, put it on stands, remove the rear fenders, remove the spare tire mount, disconnect the brake rods, remove the “U” bolt brackets at the axle and spring junction, and roll out the rear end without damaging the end of the drive shaft.
Remove the rear fenders.
Jack up the rear end and put it on jack stands.
Roll the rear end out from under the car.
The entire rear end is removed. A white plastic collar fastened over the square slip joint end of the drive shaft for protection.
I went about disassembling the torque tube and differential carrier.
The torque tube, differential carrier and drive shaft are suspended from the engine hoist.
JB Weld is not going to fix this.
This used to be one piece.
The torque tube was in two pieces. What other damage occurred when it broke?
The drive shaft bent a bit. The ring and pinion gears are galled and chipped. A sleeve that was grafted INSIDE the original torque tube was cracked in half. A stabilizing tube added OUTSIDE the original torque tube was split as well. This was fairly major mechanical carnage.
The drive shaft after turning some of the bend out. Still not really straight.
Ring gear chipped and heavily worn.
Ring Gear and pinion gear inside. Note the severe galling on the surface of the pinion.
My initial thought was to simply stick what was broken back together. (This is close to a “JB Weld type fix.) But that really would NOT be a fix. This torque tube had already been broken once before. The welding and grinding on the exterior of the tube proved that. There was also a substitution of a modern bearing for the original Hyatt roller & cage type bearing just forward of the first break and our new break in the torque tube. After considerable searching online, discussions with restoration experts, and consultation with the Jolly Boys (our Saturday lunch gathering) of the La Jolla Regional Group of the Horseless Carriage Club of America, I came to the conclusion that I could not simply patch up the break in our torque tube. I would have to engineer and splice in some sort of radius rod apparatus to reduce or eliminate axle wrap – lest we just keep cracking this thing in two — indefinitely.
What should a fix look like?
During the next couple of months, I spent time admiring the underside of 100 year old automobiles. And my conclusion was that a torque tube only set-up for dealing with axle wrap, was pretty rare. I found no others in my limited search. Without exception, each car I examined (from 1909 to 1916 or so, had some sort of traction bar, radius rod or anti- torque braces that prevented axle wrap. There were single side braces between the differential housing and the frame. There were single side wishbone or “Y” braces. There were double sided wishbone braces. Some of these devices connected directly to the front side of the differential housing. Others connected from the back plate of the brake drum to the frame. Still others went from the axle tubes near the wheels up to the frame. But the one that seemed best for a simple modification without too much engineering was a radius rod set-up like that on a Model T Ford. Which, by the way, was very familiar to me.
Model T Ford radius rod and rear universal joint set-up in green.
This would be the configuration that I chose to modify and install on our Michigan car. However, this would have to wait while I repaired the damage, which as I’ve shown, was considerable.