Non blade heat treat help:)

kungfumo · May 17, 2007

Hay guys,
Been working on my truck more than my knives lately. I have a quick question for ya. I need to heat treat and cryo a set of hub gears, they are small, about 3" wide. I will be heating them up with a rosebud on my tourch. Can any one walk me through how I will need to go about this?

I know that I will need to heat them up until they are non magnetic, then quench them in oil. I'm wondering if I should temper them before I soak them in liquid Nitro? Also should I quench them in oil or somthing else readaly avalible? I dont know what kind of steel the gears are made from but its out of a 1981 toyota pickup 4x4 if that helps.

The reason I want to do this is because I have some VERY expensive axles in there and if the hub gears break it will chew the splines off of the stub shafts and I'm out $700 for new axle shafts

Thanks for any help guys.

kungfumo · May 19, 2007

Thanks for the help guys

scottickes · May 19, 2007

I think the issue is that if it isn't done correctly, and you have a failure it's a major safety issue. I know that I have no desire to take a guess at this one, and I'm in the business of working with engineers that design gears, bearings and transmissions. Heat treatment on gears is absolutely critical to the performance of those gears. In your case, you don't even know the material, so this is one that I personally want to stay way clear of. Sorry.

Bruce Bump · May 19, 2007

I would think your gears are already heat treated unless you annealed them or made them yourself. You dont need to cryo them as this wouldnt do any good. If you dont know what kind of steel they are you wont know how to heat treat them. Why do they need it?

fludunlimited · May 19, 2007

hi
i heard about this just the other day.somthing about cryo on 4x4 gears but i dont think thay wher heat treating them first. supost to help in extreem conditions. i will ask my brother tomarow for you. he is the one i heard it from.
it might have been off road only.

Kiwi303 · May 19, 2007

you're also likely to need to soak them at a constant, consistant heat to let the temp penetrate throughout, so a rosebudtorch would be unlikely to manage it.

What model is the truck and are the gears aftermarket? By Hub gears I presume you mean locking/automatic freewheeling hubs in the wheel ends, not the Diff gears? I'd be chary of touching those, IIRC Aisin manual hubs as fitted tomy Isuzu are case Carburised.

mete · May 19, 2007

Don't do it , it's not a DIY job !!

Bufford · May 19, 2007

No no, call the pros and discuss this with them. It may be worth your while to ship them out, and wait as you have already put alot of time and money into your truck.

scottickes · May 19, 2007

Kiwi303 said:
you're also likely to need to soak them at a constant, consistant heat to let the temp penetrate throughout, so a rosebudtorch would be unlikely to manage it.

What model is the truck and are the gears aftermarket? By Hub gears I presume you mean locking/automatic freewheeling hubs in the wheel ends, not the Diff gears? I'd be chary of touching those, IIRC Aisin manual hubs as fitted tomy Isuzu are case Carburised.

I agree with this statement. They are more likely to be case carburized than they are to be a through hardened product. Also, a rose bud is definitely not an option.

kungfumo · May 20, 2007

Thank for the replys guys. So the deal is that these are asin hubs, they are about a 3in wide inner gear, from the factory they dont heat treat them very well and I have a tendency to break them with the axles that I have in the front. I spoke with Bobby Long who is the owner of Longfield Super axles, he also will have you send him your inner hub gears and he will heat treat and cryo them for you, I have a few buds that have had this done and so far they have worked alot better than stock hubs.

Bobby also has a axle breaking machine

its sweet, so far a set of stock inner hub gears break at 4800lbs, after heat treat they step up to 5800lbs before they snap. He sells a set of 4130 cromo hubs that are sweet but they are 90 bucks a piece. I figured since I have the tools to do this and have access to liquid nitro. I would give it a try.

This is not a saftey issue so dont worry, hubs arnt locked on the road, and even if they were and broke they would not do anything but grind off the outter spines on my axles, and maybe blow out the hub dial. I had to drive about 5 miles with a broke hub on the trail a few years ago because we had a line of people behind us. My axles were shot after that. but it still drove fine. Thanks for any help, I will call bobby and ask him what kind of steel the hubs are made from.