welding spider gears

[nyyef]

my other blazer (1980) is my "try and break it" truck. i am thinking of welding the spider gears. the truck will be driven on the street to get to the sand dunes, about 10-20 miles on road.
should i expect problems? do i risk breaking the weld?
oh, it has pure sand tires on it (less traction on road).

Knife.
knife.coloradok5.com

 

[yeild2me]

hey man, in case you havent checked it out, there is pretty good tech. article on this in the jan issue of 4 wheel and off-road...very informative and gives good tips for people interested in doing this... probably an excellent idea for you truck....not mine though!! my neighbors here in suburbia would hate to hear all that tire squealing!!

AIRBORNE!!

 

[BurbinOR]

Rene (tRustyK5) welded his over a month ago and still loves it............(I think

). Of course, he has a 14BFF so they have the strength to handle it..........not sure if you have the '80 12 bolt. Might be worth it if it is a pure off road rig. Great price if you can weld!!!!!!

<font color=orange>'79 - 406 TPI -<font color=orange> K5#5 - <font color=blue>See it at---&gt;<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.blazzinor.coloradok5.com>http://www.blazzinor.coloradok5.com</A>

 

[tRustyK5]

Yep, still like it!

The tires did bark a fair bit when I had the General Grabbers on, but with the TSL's I hardly notice it.
Like Frank said I have the 14 bolt FF, so all I welded was the voids between the teeth, 4 places on each spider gear. I've probably put 1000 street miles on it and have wheeled it twice since I welded it. No problems so far. If I was going to weld up a 12 bolt I would do something similar but with the side gears. Why wreck a perfectly good carrier? At least this way if you find it isn't what you want you can just replace the side gears or the spiders, whichever you welded up. Handling is a bit different with a good amount of understeer. It just requires a little more steering input to get the truck to turn, no big deal, it just takes some getting used to.
Overall I have to say so far so good, but I'll keep you posted if anything breaks!

Rene