It Floats - Chevrolet Full Floating Rear Axle (1936)

the rear axle in the old wooden ox cart had only one job to do in this type of vehicle the power was supplied from an outside force the cart was either pulled or pushed while the axle was stationary and had nothing to do but support the load with the coming of the automobile it became necessary to transmit the power of the engine to the rear wheels so room was made for a shaft to transmit this power next room had to be made so that the differential ring gears and pinions could be inserted of course when this was done a strong connection had to be made to join the two tubes together Chevrolet engineers build a strong cantilever bridge across the cut in the axle making it even stronger than the old solid axle the three units of the rear axle housing the bridge and the two tubes are firmly assembled into one complete sturdy unit Chevrolet engineers realized that this part of the axle should be easily accessible from the outside so an inspection plate was placed over the rear of this banjo construction the rear axle now became merely an axle housing to support the load next gears were added to transmit the engine power to the axle shafts and wheels all these axle shafts have to do is turn the wheels they do not bear the weight of the low as it is borne by this husky axle housing one of the outstanding features of Chevrolet's new full floating rear axle is the barrel shaped roller bearings which are entirely self aligning because of the barrel shape of these rollers they form only a small area of contact with the races under normal load conditions reducing friction to a minimum and keeping the rollers in exact alignment as the load is increased each roller spreads into the bearing race providing support along the width of the bearing when the load is decreased again the area of contact is decreased so that the capacity of the bearing is always in proportion to the load this feature prevents the races from becoming groove as is common in straight roller bearings and the bearing life is therefore greatly increased in order to show you the action of these bearings this drawing has been greatly exaggerated another important advantage of Chevrolet's full floating rear axle is the for pinion differential mounting this means that any load is spread over four teeth instead of only two and ensures less strain on all parts and longer axle life in addition the rear axle housing on the 1936 Chevrolet truck is 35% stronger than last year's housing in fact this housing alone is stronger than the combined strength of the housing and shaft in previous models this new heavier and huskier rear axle housing with inspection plate together with the new exclusive self aligning bearings combine to make this full floating rear axle the finest axle ever built into a truck with this construction axle shaft breakage is extremely remote but should it ever happen the chevrolet full floating rear axle permits easy removal and replacement of either axle shafts without taking off the wheel or removing the load the design of the axle with the smaller banjo Center gives it much greater Road clearance which is another advantage that helped to make this new axle the outstanding development in the 1936 Chevrolet truck you

Channel: US Auto Industry

Views: 2,545,828

Rating: 4.9139457 out of 5

Keywords: Full, airboyd.tv, Automobile (Industry), general, yt:quality=high, Floats, Airbus, jet, Floating, ford, pontiac, Department, airline, history, Truck, #airboydtv, Rear, flying, buick, bowl, prop, airplane, super, aviation, motors, Chevrolet, luftfahrt, Axle, Boeing, It, chevy, airboyd

Id: _aVj7JSpSpU

Length: 5min 39sec (339 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 18 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/linotype]

https://youtu.be/_aVj7JSpSpU?t=295

"Easy removal and replacement of either axle shaft..."

I like how the video skips over fishing the broken piece of axle out.

[u/linotype]

Dat enunciation.

[u/ThrowUpNotAway]

I love these old videos. All info, no fluff.

Though I still don't know if I'll ever really understand how that magic works.

[u/dragonheat]

Been watching a lot of these recently, I love the one about car suspension

[u/thetableleg]

I could help but think "This video demonstrates a time when human beings assembled things, lifted heavy objects during daily duties, and we're the inventive force driving us towards the future!" It's crazy that robots and AI are doing all this work for us.

Amazing video. I could watch ones like this all day.

[u/just_plain_yogurt]

Barrel bearings aren't exactly "ubiquitous" these days, at least in automotive/truck applications. Most full floating axles use standard tapered roller bearings. The newest truck I've seen with barrel bearings was a military spec 1976 GMC 6500.