meiguoren33

I have the rearend out, new 3.73's are in, battle boxes in, every other thing is welded, new Lakewood lift bars are ready to go in, subframe connectors too. I was thinking of welding the axles tubes into the center section before bolting it in. Is'nt the center section iron and the tubes steel? Is it neccesary to weld the tubes in if the car really hooks? If so, how can the two different metals be welded together?

primetime5.0

you need a special welding rod my buddy did it too his 03 cobra and i think he used a nickle rod but im not positive, call around and see if you get an answer

tinman

Yep, nickel rod but I dunno if pre-heating/post heating may not be needed.....

JD1969

Thats true tinman, plus warping could be an issue, which is hell on axels and bearings

meiguoren33

Another site I saw showed breakage that occurred with slicks and only 250HP. So at what level of power and traction is welding the tubes neccesary?

I seen shops that put the whole assembly into an oven @ 600 degrees and weld it the preffered way, but it needs to be gutted. I just regeared my rear and I'm just too lazy to pull it all apart again.

tinman

My thinking is that you would at least need a dummy shaft thru it so it would everything dead striaght as it was being welded.
Where I used to work at we had one for narrowing rear housings.
It's about a $600 tool, BTW......