Well, I would rather trust my "amaturish" welds over "guessing it will work". $15 for a 5lb can of rods, has got to be cheaper than the amount of lead it would take to do that. And all the time involved. I have two Raiders that have been Lincoln locked and they have worked well. I knew when they were done, there would be no taking them out. Oh yeah, almost forgot the forum user that has the Chinese manual hubs is username - plh

This is not an unproven method. I've discussed it with guys that have it. It works. I can't weld this up. I may need these diffs open again later.

Thanks for the hint on the hubs. I'll look him up.

Chris

Are you positive that it's something that can be undone? I can see it as an alternative to welding it up, but I do not see it as being something that is easily reversed (or reversed at all).

I've heard of this method, I heard it works well. Try tire shops for lead(old style ballancing weights). You'll have to pick the clips out once the lead liquifies.

Everything I've read says you put aluminum foil in the bottom of your pumpkin and hit the spider with a MAP torch. It takes a little while, but works well.

I'll try to take pics and post progress as I do this.

Chris

OK. I got a bunch of lead from the tire shop. I stopped at Salvation Army and got a pot. I think I'll use my Coleman Camp Stove to heat it. I ordered a pair of manual hubs for the front. I should be jumping in to this project either this weekend or the next. I will be at Big Meats (mostly watching) in Disney, OK on the 22nd of March. Hope to be locked and ready by then!

Chris

I got started on this today. Just stopped for lunch. Swaybar gone. Dif fluid drained. Manual hubs waiting at Post Office for me to pick up. Will crack pumpkin next. Plan to post pics as I can.

Chris

OK. Here goes. I pulled the gears this morning. I found it worked great to stand the assembly on the yolk on the rear drum. That made it easy to work with.



I wrapped the spider gears with several layers of heavy duty aluminum foil. I tucked in the edges in with a screwdriver to make sure there weren't places that the lead could leak through.



I picked up lead from a tire shop. I got a skillet from Salvation Army. I found that many of the weights from the tire shop weren't lead. I ended up hauling my gas grill into the garage and using the burner on the side. It worked well. It took a bit to get hot enough to melt the lead.



I found that the lead was cooling around the edges of the skillet so I transferred to a tin can. As the lead poured out, the dross stayed behind in the skillet. After that discovery, I made one more transfer to another can before the final pour. It was very clean lead by then.



I rotated the assembly until the foil was on the bottom.



I finally got up the nerve and grabbed a couple pair of pliers.






After a few minutes to cool, I rotated the assembly again and pealed the aluminum foil. You can see how it seeped through to the bottom side.



We checked for remnants of aluminum foil, then poured the other side.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/HuGVBwF.jpg[/img]

I panicked a little bit when I saw that some seeped into the splines where the axle shaft goes.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/2hsYf9w.jpg[/img]

A little work with a screwdriver and it came right out!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/m2mL9Kt.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/dKw6oHh.jpg[/img]

I'm in the middle of the reassembly now. I hate drum brakes. I'll let you know how it works out.

Chris

For the love of screen, resize those pictures man! I can't even view them on my 23" 1920x1080 screen. If you're not sure how to resize them, then delete post before this one, then go to http://imgur.com and upload them there, and send us the link to imgur.com

Ditto that.

John B.