The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Results of a material spectral analysis.

My front axle was from the beginning a little bended.

As far as I know, axles are usually made of high-alloyed steel and therefore I was very worried about the necessary truing. A local hardening shop made an spectral analysis and the results are a little surprisingly for me.

The axle is made of a "better mild or structural steel" with less than 0,3 % carbon (C). I was surprised but the clerk not. High-alloyed steel would have been very unusual for the 1950s, that material came up within the last 30 years.

Conclusion: The material is not very brittle and I can truing it.

If anybody needs the complete analysis, contact me.

cool to know. i have cut up a lot of front axles and they don't always seem that hard. i guess they need to take the stresses of use with out stress fracturing. rear inner axles that wear are usually harder than the i beam front ones. sounds like you spent some cash, consider just doing the grinding spark test?

Wow, there is some sophisticated technology being applied here. This is indeed a very interesting posting.

It is was more that a spark test. They made a complete analysis and determined the hardness by Rockwell.

http://img229.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spektralanalyse.jpg

The results aren't surprising to me at all, since I grew up around a shop where we bent axles all the time, doing front end alignments. They are forged, and extremely tough, but not brittle. It's really surprising how far an axle has to be flexed to get a degree or two of alignment angle change. It rebounds at least halfway after a bending procedure, so to move a point on the axle 1/4" for instance, it must be flexed 1/2" or more, and allowed to rebound partway.
Jerry