[Bob Carriere]

On Saturday Rob brought his rear HUP axle.... short one... has a nice 10 degree twist in the spline exactly where it exits the axle cage.

Seems that the steel must have been of poor quality or badly hardened.... read too soft and it twisted. Rob also mentioned that the rear cross member on his HUP was badly bent from pulling too hard... on stumps maybe.....

Anyways, we went ot the machine shop down the road for advice.
Having compared the over size of the Cab 13 rear axle we wondered if a HUP axle could be cut form the Cab 13.

Basically it could..... he explained that the cutting of spline is a very time consuming process..... at least 3 cuts need to be made... one on each side and then down the middle.... and being carefull you usually have to repeat the 3 cut process to make sure you do not remove too much steel on the first pass.

Of course using a cab 13 axle would also need machining the end cap to look like a Hup axle and allow the lift flange to be bolted on.

His final advice, after we told him the age of the truck and based on using the truck primarily for parades and the odd Sunday outings...... "I tell you based on my 25 years in the business it lasted this long and twisted this much with out breaking it wont break with reasonable driving......

Which made both Rob and I wonder how Phil has been driving.....hahaha......

Phil... where and how did your rear axle break..?? was it near the spline section??? there as been too many breaks in HUP axles considering the size of the vehicle......

Anyways for the time being having a new one made for $1200 dollars is prohibitive...... running the old one is tempting.

As anyone broken Cab 13 massive axles.... shoret or long ones?

Bob C.