strength and reliability of welded diff

[willymonster]

so as funds mat have it i am considering welding my 14 bolt . will it hold up to continous beatings ? tires will be 44s and im running a 454 . i know you always hear that eventually they will break but how long has yours lasted and what size tire are you running ?

[RootBreaker]

Originally Posted by willymonster

so as funds mat have it i am considering welding my 14 bolt . will it hold up to continous beatings ? tires will be 44s and im running a 454 . i know you always hear that eventually they will break but how long has yours lasted and what size tire are you running ?

biggest question is .... how are your welds????

I like my detroit locked...

however I thought about lincoln locked too but didnt go that route

[willymonster]

usually i run detroits also but im currently unemployed and trying to scrape this thing together before spring . my welds arent the best but my buddy is a steam fitter i will have him do the welding . welding hardened metal is a nono but evrybody mentions welding diffs , i am ok with the fact it may brake EVENTUALLY because it will have been swapped out for a 14 bolt with detroit once i start working again . anybody have any tips for doing it ? i saw one welded by DYI and he put little pieces of metal between the gears then welde it solid , that was NICE!!!

[RootBreaker]

Originally Posted by willymonster

usually i run detroits also but im currently unemployed and trying to scrape this thing together before spring . my welds arent the best but my buddy is a steam fitter i will have him do the welding . welding hardened metal is a nono but evrybody mentions welding diffs , i am ok with the fact it may brake EVENTUALLY because it will have been swapped out for a 14 bolt with detroit once i start working again . anybody have any tips for doing it ? i saw one welded by DYI and he put little pieces of metal between the gears then welde it solid , that was NICE!!!

there was one on the tech pages..... you weld every so many teeth grooves on the spiders....

[clarkjw24]

Look for the write up/post that Kidjethro did. He had great instructions and pictures. I followed his method and its worked great so far.

[willymonster]

i just tried the search and couldnt find anything , i thought i checked thru the tech page and didnt see anything . maybey im doing somthing wrong

[clarkjw24]

Originally Posted by willymonster

i just tried the search and couldnt find anything , i thought i checked thru the tech page and didnt see anything . maybey im doing somthing wrong

I searched to and couldn't find it. Maybe its too old? Anyway, add "attention Kidjethro" to your post title and maybe he'll post up the link or the pictures for you.

[6.2Blazer]

Originally Posted by RootBreaker

there was one on the tech pages..... you weld every so many teeth grooves on the spiders....

A couple people tried that method, but they found out that it did not work.

If you weld it, weld it solid! The nice thing about a 14-bolt is that you can just tack weld everything together to make sure everything still fits right, and then pull the spider and side gears completely out of the case and weld the crap out of it........you can get more weld area on it than just about any other type of diff. It's also very easy, and the standard method, to make it a "mini-spool" type setup so it's easy to remove the welded section and replace it with a Detroit at a later date.

My rear 14FF has been welded since around '01 or so, 35's for the first couple of years and 38" TSL's since. I had the rear diff cover off several months ago changing the fluid and there were no signs of any cracking or junk in the oil. I've also broken two 30-spline D60 stubshafts and sheared the steering arm off the knuckle since so you know the truck gets used hard.

[KidJethro]

No issues with strength and reliability of a welded diff IF you do the "gear ball" method.

Here's a link to the original thread-
http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthr...ight=gear+ball

This is my reply in that thread-

Here is my reply from the post Fubeca linked too-

Don't bother welding it per the tech article. The back lash that this creates will, over the long run, cause cracking and failure of the side and spider gears. I believe tRustyK5 can comment on this. He put alot of miles on a setup done as the tech article, and was not happy with the long term wear. If you're gonna weld it, I think the consenus is that welding the side gears, spiders, and cross shaft all into one piece is the best idea. I have done 10+ of these for club members and even sold a couple on another BB. So if you have any questions, I'm your man. Here's a few pictures and a bit of an explanation..

Remove the axle shafts first...Ask me how many times I've done this and forgot to remove the axle shafts, and then couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the carrier out.. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/rotfl.gif[/img]

After you get the cover off the housing and you're lookin at the carrier and ring gear, you'll see two small bolts, one on either side of the carrier. These two bolts hold the clips in place, which in turn lock the side bearing adjusting nuts in place. These are the large round pieces with many small holes around thier circumference, just outboard from the carrier bearing races. What I do is take a scribe and mark the two holes that the prongs on the clips sit in on the adjusting nut. I also scribe a third mark between the two holes on the adjusting nut and onto the housing. Remove the carrier bearing cap bolts, don't bother with removing the two small bolts and the clips. Set them aside in the same orientation that they came off. Leaving the clips and bolts in the bearing cap helps with making sure that you get them back on in the same orientation they came off. No it's time to loosen the adjusting nut's. One turns clockwise, the other turns counter clockwise. What I do is loosen each nut exactly 1 rotation. Lining up the scribe mark on the nut's and the scribe mark on housing after one rotation. Check to see if the carrier will come out now. If it won't, loosen each nut 1 more turn. Check again. Repeat till the carrier will come out. Remember how many rotations you loosened the nuts, so you'll know how many rotations to tighten them when you put it back together. If you loosen it 2 turns, tighten it two turns, and make sure the two prongs on the clip go back into the holes on the adjusting nut that you marked ealier. Pull carrier out, make sure that the carrier bearing races don't fall out and take off accross the shop floor and hide under the tool box... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/rotfl.gif[/img] Set carrier on bench and remove all the ring gear bolts. Tap ring gear off of carrier with brass punch and hammer. Split carrier apart.

This is what you will see after removing the ring gear and splitting the carrier halves apart...


First thing you need to do is take the top side gear off, and tack the spider gears to the cross shaft where the welds are in this picture..Don't forget to flip it over and tack the other side as well. Make sure that the little cup shaped washers that sit betwee the spiders and the carrier remain there while you tack things. I have yet to pull a 14b carrier apart where all 4 of those washers were in good shape. Everyone has had atleast 1 cracked washer. Luckily I had spares. After you get it all tacked, put some welds appx. 1" long in the same places as the tacks. Just like the picture below.

Now put the side gear back on top of the spiders, making sure that it meshs correctly with the spiders and is seated all the way down. Tack every place where the side gears meet the spiders. Remove the gear cluster thingy from the carrier half, flip it over, and set the side you just tacked back into the carrier. There are also large flat washers behind the side gears, make sure those stay in place as well. Repeat the same process with the other side gear. When you have everything tacked together, pull the "gear ball" out of the carrier and weld every place the spiders meet the side gears..Like these pictures...(In the background of the first picture, you can see the cup shaped washers that go behind the spiders, and the large flat washers that fit behind the side gears.)




With 24 seperate welds holding it together, it won't come apart. Pretty much a mini spool for a 14b. I'm 99.9% sure that welded in this manner, It WILL NOT break. The entire carrier would have to explode for that to happen. If you don't like it after you weld it, you can either pull the gear ball out and replace it with a Detriot, or another set of spiders, side gears and cross shaft. No damage to the carrier at all. After you finish, be sure that you clean off all the boogers you can. They like to hang out on the splines in the side gears. A bladed screw driver and a small hammer work well to knock them off. Put everything back together. Don't freak out if the axle shafts dont slide in as loose as they pulled out. Almost everyone I've done I've had to tap thje axle shafts in with a hammer. Key word is tap. If you have to seriously hammer on it, something is wrong. Alot of heat went into welding things together, heat cause's expanding and contracting, thats why it could be a tight fit.

Damn....This pretty much turned into a write-up on how to weld a 14b. haha! Hope that it helps. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

The pictures in that thread don't work anymore, so here they are in no specific order-






I ran my welded diff with 42's, 465+doubler and 5.13 gears...Not one issue with strength.

[Hossbaby50]

Originally Posted by RootBreaker

there was one on the tech pages..... you weld every so many teeth grooves on the spiders....

That method is the wrong method for welding a spiders. I know that several people including myself tried that method and it causes problems. There is slop in the diff with this method so it moves back and forth against the welds as you get on and off the gas and go from forward to reverse and such. The welds wear down and cause alot of slop in the diff. It also causes metal shavings to build up in the gear oil and diff. I believe that someone even cracked some spiders using that method because of the slop.

I first tried the gap welding method and it did ok for a year or two but you could tell that you were getting more and more slop. I then switched to the spiderball method of Jethro's and it worked ALOT better. There was no more slop in the diff and the metal shavings stopped. It is just as easy to do the Jethro Method so don't waste time with the gap welding method. I know run a Detroit locker in the back and it works alot better then both of the previous weld jobs. I say this in terms of being able to turn on the trail, turn on the street, and all around driveablility.

For a dedicated trail rig the Jethro Method is a good viable choice. For street and trail use I think a Detroit reigns supreme.

Harley