Thread: 1950 chevy truck hot rod, old issues looking for ideas

Tweet

slight change in topics, but I'm preparing to hoist my bed up with the roof trusses in my garage to do some work underneath, and there's 2 questions I have regarding what I found.

1) I made a stainless gas tank that is under the bed, and it has a small leak. I mig'd it and did a bad job when I made it originally. So I was going to remove that and either use that gas tank sealer stuff or TIG the seams back up this time as now I tig pretty well. Obviously since there was fuel in it I need to do something to take care of that. Should I just fill it with water or something? Or is there a better procedure?

2) I had a panhard bar bolted to my differential (ford 9") and I just found out that one of the bolts sheared off. It is in that front section of the housing that separates from the main body where the input pinion goes in. I'm assuming I can just unbolt that front section and pull it out from the main body rather than pull the whole pumpkin? Then I can work on extracting that bolt on a bench rather than in place.
Or will it not come out that way?

Originally Posted by tcodi

1) I made a stainless gas tank that is under the bed, and it has a small leak. I mig'd it and did a bad job when I made it originally. So I was going to remove that and either use that gas tank sealer stuff or TIG the seams back up this time as now I tig pretty well. Obviously since there was fuel in it I need to do something to take care of that. Should I just fill it with water or something? Or is there a better procedure?

Here's a down-home, common sense approach. Not sure why he cut a hole in the tank, he could have done the operation through the fill hole.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mciCgu8Vxi0

Originally Posted by tcodi

2) I had a panhard bar bolted to my differential (ford 9") and I just found out that one of the bolts sheared off. It is in that front section of the housing that separates from the main body where the input pinion goes in. I'm assuming I can just unbolt that front section and pull it out from the main body rather than pull the whole pumpkin? Then I can work on extracting that bolt on a bench rather than in place.
Or will it not come out that way?

The threads are in the carrier, not the pinion seal housing, so the pig will have to come out to work on it on the bench. Removal begins at 8:40 on the video....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eonALVnV33I

If there is no leaking, I would just leave it until the next time the differential needs to come out of the car or when it is time for a gear change. In the meantime, I would re-construct the Panhard Bar like it is supposed to be. (NOT ATTACHED TO THE CENTER SECTION OF THE PIG).

I have railed against Panhard Bars many times on this forum and have gone to extreme lengths to suggest how they should be constructed and anchored for best performance.
First off, the bar should be as long as is physically possible. Secondly, the MOUNTING POINTS of the bar should be as parallel to the road surface as is physically possible. It does not matter how many whoopees, bends and curves are in the bar itself, so long as the mounting points are level with the road surface and that the mounting points are as far as possible away from each other side to side on the car.

Here is an example of a well engineered and executed Panhard Bar......
https://www.fabquest.com/media/catal.../file_23_3.jpg
.

thanks for the links

unfortunately the rear is leaking now, otherwise I would take your advice and leave it.
I'm assuming the seepage is coming from there, but regardless I want to fix the leak so I might as well do the bolt at the same time.
As for the panhard bar, I'm actually just going to eliminate it all together because I have a triangulated 4 link, and technically I shouldn't even need one.
Years ago I was chasing a handling issue and I just put the bar on thinking it might help, but it didn't do squat. And now that I've sheared that bolt I sure as heck won't be mounting anything to that again.