Rear wheel bearing play

[Al 29Tudor]

Reference Mitch #12----
I bought two of those bearings from Bratton's and installed them.
Soon after I bought them Walt Bratton himself called me and asked me to check them. When I described them he said throw them out and he sent me two new good bearings, seals and retaining clips at no charge to me.
That's a good company.
Al Leach

 

[Mitch//pa]

Reference Mitch #12----
I bought two of those bearings from Bratton's and installed them.
Soon after I bought them Walt Bratton himself called me and asked me to check them. When I described them he said throw them out and he sent me two new good bearings, seals and retaining clips at no charge to me.
That's a good company.
Al Leach

Your one of the few that got a call your lucky
Yes Brattons is top notch they didnt make them but they stood behind the damages... im not dissing them at all. Im sure other suppliers had them also.
Brattons is my main supplier

 

[newshirt]

What was the reason the axle broke?

I still don't know. I can only guess that the axle cracked a long time ago, but stayed partially connected, and then finally broke in two.

The photo shows a nice clean crack on the right side, and a messy twisted break on the left. I assumed these two breaks occurred several months apart.

 

[Mitch//pa]

Looks like some rust settled into the r/s where its a clean break ,, possibly from a hair line crack???

 

[newshirt]

Looks like some rust settled into the r/s where its a clean break ,, possibly from a hair line crack???

Yep. That is why I believed the two breaks occurred several weeks or months apart. But I'm just guessing.

 

[larrys40]

Ray,
I had a similar thing happen back in 2007. Mine broke back inside the housing snub and was probably a fatigue thing. I was ironically on a trip with my daughter at the Smokey Mountain Model A Meet.. it happened when I did a light downhill pop start in a parking lot and broke... had it happened the night before we would have been coming into town on the freeway at night with 18 wheelers behind us. The good Lord was with us for sure.
Thanks to the Smokey Mountain guys there were 2 swap vendors at the meet and one of them had 4 axles... he wanted $40 and I gave him $50 and said thank you. George Lett and I changed it out in less than 3 hours. Of course rear axles are one of my specialties but needless to say it was a surprise. I think that after the years of service and use/abuse that metal fatigue does occur. IF it's broken at the edge of a keyway and the hub was loose that can of course be a contributing factor.

Many hubs are not adequately tightened. Looks like you're in for a rear rebuild. Do it right the first time and you will be well served and assured.
Larry Shepard