My 1910 Mitchell "parts car" project

[JV Puleo]

Today I put some black paint on the hubs. This is an interesting part of the process because my plan for restoring the wheels requires that I do it with the hubs painted since once they are assembled I do not want to take them apart.

 

 

Then back to mandrel I'm making. I did get the nut to thread on and am still wondering what was wrong. It went on one way but not the other. In the end, I just lapped the threads until it fit either way.

 

 

Then I used the mandrel to face off the rough side and put the chamfers on the edges.

 

 

Next up, I put the spacers on an expanding mandrel and turned them down to 1.875".

 

 

The is is completed tool. The felts will go between the spacers, the nut will put a lot of pressure on them and I'm hoping I can cut them down to the proper OD in the lathe.

 

[mikewest]

On 11/7/2022 at 10:22 PM, chistech said:

Joe, this might sound a little crazy but use a couple large tapered alignment pins clamped in small drill press vises on the floor. I put the axle on the pins using the spring shackle bolt holes. The front axles are hard to handle and to keep upright when trying to paint.  I found a taper pin in a vise on each end of the axle on opposite sides holds the axle upright and steady plus allows painting everywhere it’s needed.

Why not hang it from two wires?

[chistech]

7 minutes ago, mikewest said:

Why not hang it from two wires?

I’m not fond of hanging heavy items from wire and often you have a hard time controlling the angle that the part hangs.

[JV Puleo]

I don't think wire would have worked for the axle since I had to paint part of it while hanging and I didn't want it to move around. I did the two ends, hung it on the bar and then did the middle part. It took me some time to think of a way to hold the steering knuckles so I could reach all the painted areas without touching it. Those are drying now and I may well hang them up. Another problem is that I'm very cramped for space. Since it isn't my building I try to keep everything in the shop but finding places where I can put things until I need them that won't be in the way is difficult. I have rows of shelves with boxes of parts, labeled as to what they are but I'm running out of space there too and there are no more walls to build shelves on!

[mikewest]

2 minutes ago, JV Puleo said:

I don't think wire would have worked for the axle since I had to paint part of it while hanging and I didn't want it to move around. I did the two ends, hung it on the bar and then did the middle part. It took me some time to think of a way to hold the steering knuckles so I could reach all the painted areas without touching it. Those are drying now and I may well hang them up. Another problem is that I'm very cramped for space. Since it isn't my building I try to keep everything in the shop but finding places where I can put things until I need them that won't be in the way is difficult. I have rows of shelves with boxes of parts, labeled as to what they are but I'm running out of space there too and there are no more walls to build shelves on!

Be like old Henry , carry the parts home and assemble in the house. When done cut a new patio  door in.

[JV Puleo]

You haven't seen my house. Built in 1703. There is no room you could put a car in and no place for an outside door. Besides, it's full of books (and I mean really full...I need another 50' of bookshelf space at least). I really need to build a garage, That's coming but not this year. I was 71 on my last birthday and my capacity for hours of heavy manual labor is tapering off. As it is, I'm good for 5 or 6 hours at a time...then I start making errors.

 

Besides, if I get hit by a bus, you guys are going to have to sort this stuff out. No one here has a clue as to what I'm doing.

[JV Puleo]

Next, I will install the drain plug. In order to clamp the housing to the mill table I needed to remove these pipe plugs. The first axle housing didn't have them so I'm guessing it was a bit earlier. I strongly suspect that they found that the grease they recommended for lubrication of the ring & pinion in the owner's manual was inadequate from the beginning and it was necessary to go to heavy oil. If so, the original seals would not have been sufficient so they installed these plugs so you could drain the tube.

 

 

I flipped it over and tried the drain plug boss on the housing. You'll remember that I spent weeks lapping this to the contour of the housing. I don't feel like doing that again and it's also clear that this does not fit as well on this housing as it did on the other one. In this case, I decided to bite the bullet and get some Devcon steel putty which I'll use between the two pieces to replicate the lower contour and make a tight seal. It's very expensive (which is why I hesitated to get it...about $80 for 1 lb.!) but it is a really superior product.

 

 

Last, I masked off the spindles and sprayed some primer on the ends of the housing. I want the sand blasted finish on the spindles because I will be attaching the sleeves for the new bearings with Loctite and that finish will give me the maximum adhesion. It was obvious when I took it apart that the chassis was painted after it was assembled because there was no paint at all on these inner surfaces. Fortunately, cast iron is quite rust resistant but I'd prefer they were painted before I put the backing plates back. I can't put the backing plates on until all the machine work is done so I want to paint the surfaces behind them now and give it plenty of time to cure.

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[nsbrassnut]

Hi JV

 

I have been following your work with interest.

 

I think that there was a question about which other manufacturer's may have used the Lemoine style front axle. Well, one was Hudson in 1914 on the 6-40 model. But they flipped it over and called it "reverse Lemoine" where the retaining nut is on the bottom.

 

Here is a picture of the left front of my Hudson 6-40 axle. The car is running and driveable, but really needs a proper restoration.

 

The design isn't great and was only used for one year. And the Hudson service bulletins put out a notice to change the bottom thrust washers to two washer and thrust roller bearing design within a couple months of starting production to make steering a bit easier. One of the early "hidden recalls".

 

The design used two large bronze bushings in the axle of two different sizes. The spindle itself fitted with replaceable wear sleeves where it fits into the ends of the axle. The design may have been intended to be easily serviced. But it really isn't and there is a lot of play in this axle at present.

 

The funny looking top of the spindle is a hollow section where the special speedometer drive goes. It used a shaft inside the spindle, driven by a plate under the hubcap. Then double right angle gears in the spindle and an output on the top. Needless to say, another one year only poor design. Mine is long gone.

 

Enjoy.

 

Jeff

Nova Scotia

Canada

 

 

 

 

[JV Puleo]

I have to admit that's a new one on me. It seems like a very odd idea, especially if the nut came loose and the entire spindle popped out of the axle. I can see why it was a one year only experiment!

Edited November 14, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[chistech]

They thought about making longer spindles so you could make low riders easier!😁

[JV Puleo]

I am still waiting on some material...it's probably here but UPS delivers at the end of the day so I haven't checked yet. This morning I hung the parts I'd painted up with the axle. There's a good chance they will be in the same place a year from now so the paint should have plenty of time to cure.

 

 

The most challenging part of this rear axle is accommodating the projection on the end of the pinion that originally fit into a ball bearing.

It mikes .7785...a strange size that isn't a standard for either the imperial or metric systems. However, it is .0015 smaller than .780 which is 25/32.

 

 

This is the problem...here's the first rear axle housing with the holder for the ball bearing intact. It's part of the casting.

 

 

Unfortunately, it's broken on the housing I'm using...

 

 

I do have a plan albeit one that will require making some fixtures and a special boring bar so I can bore that broken piece exactly concentric with the pinion bearing. I was going to start on that but, at that moment, some other aluminum arrived for the seal making tools so I went on to that. This is two pieces of 3/4" aluminum, 4" x 4". I put a 1/4" hole in each of the corners, slipping in a dowel pin as I did each one so all four will be in perfect alignment with each other.

 

 

Then I bolted the two pieces together and bored a 1-3/8" hole in the center. This is about .040 larger than the 34mm Forstner bit I'm waiting on.

 

 

Without taking them apart, I then started to counterbore the piece 1/2" deep and 3" in diameter. It's about half finished here.

 

 

I should be able to finish this tomorrow but can't finish the felt seals until the 34mm bit arrives.

Edited November 15, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

Counterbored to 3" so that the felt buffing wheel fits in.

 

 

Then, without taking it apart, I bored and reamed two of the corners to 1/2" for alignment pins.

 

 

In fact, that didn't work. Because the piece on top has to go on the bottom there was just enough drift in the drill so that when the pieces were reversed they didn't line up (remembering that we are dealing with clearances of about .001). To fix this I did it again with the two pieces in the finished position using 5/8" pins.

 

 

Then the other two corners on the bottom plate were drilled and tapped 3/8-16 while the top piece was drilled about .396...bigger than 3/8 so that there would be clearance around the bolt. All these do is pull the top down...the dowel pins control the alignment.

 

 

And assembled with a felt in place.

 

 

With that done, I put the rear axle housing up on the mill and aligned the boss for the drain plug.

 

 

It looks as if this housing was not cast from the same pattern as the original because the contour of the underside is off by a fair amount. It's nothing that would be noticed if I weren't trying to attach something there. I had planned to use the Devcon steel filler to correct this but in thinking about it I decided to see if I could lap it to get it closer. No matter how good these modern products are, I really prefer to do things the old way. To this end I put some Dychem on the inner face so I could see the progress of the lapping. This is after about 20 minutes...

 

 

And after about 1-1/2 hours...keeping in mind that I'm not standing at the machine all that time. It's a tedious job but there is no doubt the result is superior. I'll go on with it tomorrow and, if all goes well, I may just finish. I am using the coarsest grinding compound I could find...50 grit. It does not have to be mirror smooth. In fact, some roughness may be a good thing as it will grip whatever gasket compound I use.

 

[Luv2Wrench]

I agree, with all the great tools we have, processes like lapping have fallen by the wayside.   It is very "correct" for industry to evolve great tools to improve efficiency but to some extent that means the old school techniques, that are generally within reach of the average person, have all but disappeared. 

[JV Puleo]

Yes...and that is all the more important for what we are doing here. The notion that the newest machines do a "better" job is patently false. They do the job faster. I won't even say they take less skill to operate. It's just a different skill set. In any case, as you know, I'm doing all of this with machines that are no longer viable in industry (most are as old, or older than the car) and, for the most part, would be valued as scrap metal. You remind me of a story a friend told me. He was approached to finish machine some engine covers for pre-WWI Indian motorcycles. "Do you have CNC machines" the customer asked. "No" my friend replied. "Then how can you do it"... My friend's answer was "How do you suppose they did it to begin with?"

 

I went on with the lapping today. It went faster than I'd anticipated but still took a good two or three hours. I'm sure that's somewhat the result of the part being semi finished to begin with.

 

 

By 2 PM I was pretty much done.

 

 

Then I positioned it in the mill. The 3/4" bar is to make certain the hole is perpendicular to the housing.

 

 

Without moving it (except up and down) I put in a center hole.

 

 

Then drilled it out to 1/2"

 

 

And went through with an 11/16 end mill.

 

 

Followed by a 3/4-16 tap.

 

 

And tried it out...

 

 

The fit is quite good...not perfect but as close as I can get working with a casting that was never intended to have this part fitted. a Thick paper gasket and some Indian Head gasket shellac will take care of that. I think it actually fits better than the first one I did and that didn't leak.

 

 

I'm confident enough to not bother testing it with oil as I still have to paint the inside of this casting and want to preserve the sand blasted finish so the paint will grip perfectly. Also note the crack I need repaired...I'll have to take it to Ed's friend in Uxbridge.

Edited November 16, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

I was able to get a 25/32 reamer for the bushing I will have to make for the pinion. Just to make sure it will be right I reamed this flange bushing I'd bought for the job (even though I've since redesigned the part and will make a special bushing).

 

 

And tried it on the pinion.

 

 

Then I went on to the fixture I'll need to bore the broken piece in the rear axle casting. This is a piece of 7" aluminum bar faced off...

 

 

With a 1-1/2" hole in the center.

 

 

The 34mm Forstner bit also came in so I tried my fixture for making the felt seals.

 

 

 

It worked but I think the fit is too tight. I could barely get these on to the 1-3/8" bar. Nevertheless, I decided to see if I could reduce the diameter.

 

 

Which worked, but not as well as I'd like.

 

 

They did fit inside the seal housing but it is clear the hole in the center has to be larger.

 

 

So...I decided to try a 1-3/8" Forstner bit. These are Porter Cable and are ground differently than the German 34mm bit. It worked much better.

 

 

At this point, I polished the end of the one axle I have (I'll have to make the other one) and tried it. The fit was just about perfect. It slips on but not so tight so as to be difficult.

 

 

I drilled out the remaining felts but I'll have to buy more since I need four of them and I now have only three.

 

 

Last up today, I set the lathe up to turn the boring fixture.

 

 

[Gary_Ash]

Joe, I was able to cut some felt seals using steel exhaust tubing as cutters.  I found short pieces of tube adapters at the auto parts store that were close to the size I needed.  I ground the edges sharp, then used a 12 ton hydraulic press to cut the #1 felt.  The results were good.

 

 

[JV Puleo]

Gary...that is a good idea. I need 1-7/8" OD so 2" pipe may be just the thing and I think I have some. The only reservation I have is that they are 20mm thick but I'll try it and see if it can cut that much.

 

Thanks,

 

jp

[chistech]

The 20mm is most likely be a problem for the soft exhaust pipe as the fibers be very dense at 20mm. I’ve done exactly as Gary suggested but have had a hard time with the thicker felts. I ended up trying an odd school cheap spring steel hole saw, the kind that have a spring steel blade that was basically a flat piece rolled and hardened with teeth. Often they have notches to lock into the mandrel that would go in your drill. They cut the felt great but their issue is the gap where the two ends of the blade meet as it ends to be slightly untrue. So I sandwiched the thicker felt between two pieces of steel with a hole of correct size to correspond with the hole saw. This prevents any blade runout. 
     I would try pressing them first as Gary suggested but thought I’d offer a way I got to work for me on the thicker material if it doesn’t work. I don’t believe they make those old hole saws anymore but they always pop up at someone’s yard sale.  I have a boxed (a metal hinged box)set that I went to throw out a couple times until I used them once. Now those cheap Chinese hole saws sit in the same cabinet as my finer tools do. When I need them, they work well. 

[Gary_Ash]

Ted may be onto something.  I have one of those old multi-size hole saws that gets used occasionally.  However, in recent years, I've bought Lenox, Milwaukee, and other brand hole saws, used them in wood, aluminum, and steel sheet.  They are available in many sizes, have good teeth, are hard metal, should cut 20 mm felt easily when pressed - and they don't have a gap.  In fact, you might even be able to put them in a drill press and cut the felt as they are designed to be used.  

 

 

[JV Puleo]

You have given me an idea. Thanks. I'll try it out this afternoon.

I had thought of hole saws. In fact, that is what I used the last time but the thickness seemed to make that difficult. Also, I need an OD of 1-7/8" which probably means a 2" saw will give the proper ID - or close enough to it.

[chistech]

When using the good hole saws like Gary shows, drill the felts in your mill running backwards. The lock collar on the mandrel will prevent them from loosening. It will cut the felt and the teeth will not be as aggressive, pulling the felt. Those cheap hole saws have smaller teeth more like a hack saw and you can get away with them running clockwise usually. Joe, I sent you an email about something else you maybe can use.

[JV Puleo]

I like that idea though I may just use the drill press since it's 3-phase and I can make it run backwards. I had wanted to do it today but the fixture I'm making is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. I did stop and get a 2" deep hole saw on the way in and I've an idea for a little fixture to hole the felt so the OD will be concentric with the ID.

 

I had intended to finish the fixture I set up last night but had quite a bit of trouble with the lathe drive belt slipping. This appears to be a function of turning a large diameter that I'd forgotten about. In any case, I have to take quite small cuts to keep it moving...although as the diameter is reduced it gets easier.

 

 

It's about 1/2 done. I need to go from 7" to 4".

[chistech]

Now you have to find those belt end alligator connectors you wanted to let me use so you can shorten your belt!😁 My lathe has a 4” wide flat belt and thankfully doesn’t slip!

[JV Puleo]

I think my belt is 3" wide and it may be that the inside is worn a bit too smooth. It's the one I fitted when I set the machine up so it's at least 10 years old.

 

[Terry Harper]

Hello Joe,

 

Is the belt leather? We just replaced all the belting in our Grady Machine shop. We purchased it through Hudson Belting. Great people to work with and great product.

 

https://www.hudsonbelting.com/

 

 

[JV Puleo]

No. It's one of those composite cloth/rubber belts. At the time I put the lathe together I couldn't afford a leather belt. Perhaps I should look into that now.

[JV Puleo]

I managed to get quite a lot done today, starting with the boring fixture. This fits into the housing in place of the torque tube. The nominal size of the hole is 4" but in order to bore it accurately I wanted it slightly bigger. The hole mikes at 4.003 so I stopped at 4.005 and tried it.

 

 

It went in part way so back into the lathe to very carefully take off a thousandth or two. I did that with a big fine file. I think I did it twice until it slipped in without any noticeable movement side to side.

 

 

Then back to the lathe to face off the back side.

 

 

After which, I pressed in this 1-1/2 x 1-1/4 x 4" bushing. The bushing is there to steady the boring bar which, in this case, cannot have an outboard support. To make sure it runs true I want the closest possible tolerances and I'll take very light cuts.

 

 

With that done, I went back to the seals, first making this piece of the fixture from one of the plugs I'd used on the axle.

 

 

It fits inside the hole in the felt and is very slightly smaller than the OD. It is mounted on a piece of 3/4" plywood with a 1/2" hole in the center.

 

 

Then I took a 1/2" bolt and drilled a 1/4" hole through the center.

 

 

With the felt bolted down to the board I centered it by passing the 1/4" drill that is part of the hole saw through the hole in the bolt. For some reason I forgot to take a picture of that but it worked quite well. Oddly, it worked best when I ran the drill in the correct direction feeding it down very slowly and raising it to clear the bits of felt several times.

 

 

 

The felts fit perfectly inside the seal housing....in fact, too perfectly as I don't think they are tight enough. To deal with that, I put a little old-fashioned gasket shellac on the OD and then pressed them in since I don't want the felts spinning inside the housing. If these work) and I don't see how they can fail) it's unlikely they will have to be replaced during my lifetime.

 

 

The last step was to try the seal on the axle. I have to say, it feels as if it's just about perfect...with just a slight amount of drag.

 

 

The additional felts were supposed to arrive today but the Amazon delivery drivers are idiots...I got a notice saying they tried at 1:30 and couldn't get in...which is impossible since the front door was open.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[chistech]

Great job joe!

[JV Puleo]

I'm really pleased with the boring fixture. In order to work it will have to be precise and it looks as if I've succeeded. Today I started on the special boring bar with this piece of 1-1/4" ground bar.

 

 

One end turned down to 3/4".

 

 

To fit into the socket on the boring gear box.

 

 

Because bushings compress very slightly when pressed in, it would not slide all the way through the fixture but the amount it's off is far too small (perhaps only a few tenths of a thousandth). I decided to lap it in...this is Timesaver very fine lapping compound.

 

 

It didn't work as well as I'd hoped and I was at a loss until I thought of using a brake hone. That worked!

 

 

I have to figure the offset for the boring bit...and truth to tell, it was nearing the end of the day so I settled on making this other piece. It's just another piece of bar but this one will need a 7/16" hole through the center. Since the setup for both is almost identical I thought I'd make them both at the same time.

 

 

And, the additional felts I needed arrived so I can finish that part of the job.

Edited November 22, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

For reasons that don't bear going into, I spent the holiday in the shop...which is actually very nice because I'm guaranteed no interruptions and today's endeavor required that. I started by drilling a 7/16 hole through the center of this piece of 1-3/8" bar. This will be a tool when I get to the assembly. I drilled it 3/8" and then finished with a 7/16" drill.

 

 

 

The next step was the trickly one. This is the boring bar and the hole has to be offset .156 - half the width of a 5/15" lathe tool so that the point of the toll will be at the center line of the bar. I milled a 3/8" flat and then put in a center hole. Then I drilled it out to 3/8".

 

 

Once I had a 3/8" hole through the bar I finished it with a 1/2" end mill.

 

 

Then I trimmed one of my square-hole sleeves...5/16" square inside and 1/2" round outside.

 

 

The last step was pressing it in and I found it to be a real bear. The press was a lot harder than I'd anticipated and it was all I could do to get it in...but since it was half-way in before I realized that I couldn't get it out. It was supposed to project a tiny bit on both sides but I had to stop before I got to that point. It won't have any effect on how it works but it would have been nice if everything went smoothly. (Which is often doesn't.)

 

 

I'll finish this off tomorrow...

Edited November 25, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

I had intended to fix the exhaust system on my truck today but it was raining a bit when I got back from the auto parts store so I decided to put it off to Sunday. (I hate working on exhaust systems so that wasn't a hard decision).

 

First up, I cut down the protruding bits of the square-hole sleeve in the lathe until they were about .003 above the surface.

 

 

Then finished them with a fine file. so far, so good.

 

 

And then drilled and tapped a hole for a set screw to lock the boring tool in place.

 

 

At which point I put it back into the fixture and discovered I'd made a serious error. The micrometer fixture from my real boring bar can't be used as I'd intended. (I really should have looked at it before I made this.) I spent the rest of the day fiddling with things around the shop trying to figure a way around this. As I've said before, I seem to have a problem with simple solutions but after a good 3 or 4 hours of trying to think of a solution I finally arrived at one that uses the micrometer after all. It will be a little tricky but not as bad as the fixture I made for the 3/4" boring bar. Fortunately, I'm not align boring a crankshaft. If I get within a few thousandths of the desired size I should be fine but things seemed pretty grim for a while.

Edited November 25, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

I'm still inching along toward boring this piece. Today I ground a tool in the surface grinder...something I always put off until the lat minute because the grinder is worn out and the belt keeps slipping off. It only happened twice today so it wasn't as bad as I'd expected.

 

 

Then I shortened the bit. I't high speed steel, much too hard to cut with a saw so I used a little hand-held abrasive cut-off tool.

 

 

Then put it back in the bar to make a few more tests, seeing if I can adjust the depth. So far it looks as if it will work. I still have to attach the boring bar gearbox and think up a means to attach the long rod that pulls the bar in.

 

[1912Staver]

I expect you have mentioned why you are using this housing with the damaged bearing location. But I believe you said you also have a housing without the damage. Is it damaged in another area? A good repair in this spot  looks to be a difficult thing to accomplish.

 I am sure you have a plan in mind.

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

I started with the housing that did not have this damage but I outsmarted myself. I thought to do all the machine work before I cleaned it but, after I'd done about 90% of it, I discovered it was badly cracked at the front, where the torque tube attaches. It was so dirty that I didn't notice the heavy braze repair under a thick layer of grime. Perhaps it could be repaired but that would take melting out all the braze (there is a lot of it) just to see how bad the crack is. This housing was much rustier but it only has one minor crack. Also, the aluminum cover I have for the differential did not fit the original housing. (The bolt holes were quite far off.) It's obvious that Mitchell made some changes, presumably because they had problems with the original pattern and I suspect this is the "improved" rear end. Fortunately, all the parts I made for the bearings will work so the biggest setback was having to sleeve the holes for the brake actuators again. The cover I have does fit this housing so as much work as this repair is, it's probably less than making a complicated pattern, having it cast and machining a new cover.

 

I finally did the muffler & exhaust pipe on my truck today, having put it off all summer because I hate exhaust work and I'm getting a bit long in the tooth to be crawling under the car to wrestle with rusty exhaust pipes. To my great relief, it went better than I'd any right to expect. The parts fit and the big headache of getting the extremely rusty muffler clamps off was easily solved with my little hand-held abrasive cutoff tool. It went so well that I had time to get back to the rear axle. Here's the boring fixture all set up...with a mass of clamps to hold everything together.

 

 

The first cut barely scratched the surface...

 

 

But the second showed some real progress. Notice that it still hasn't taken the deep corrosion out. I'm wondering why it's so bad because all the other surfaces don't show this amount of corrosion and this was supposed to be a clamp to hole a ball bearing. You'd think it would have had a machined surface.

 

 

I did two more cuts of .010. You could, perhaps take a deeper cut but with the boring bar itself only supported at one end the smaller the cut, the less stress there is on it. Besides, I've been two weeks making these tools so what's an additional two hours in machining the part.

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[weathered1]

Joe, I like your boring bar setup worked nice. I am puzzled as to how you are going to make a support for the bearing.

I would imagine there is a lot of side load that close to the pinion.  

[JV Puleo]

That part is next but rather than try to explain it, it will make a lot more sense if I show it. I'm not that concerned with the side load because the pinion has a massive roller bearing at its base and I modified the pinion shaft and adjuster to keep it running straight. This was actually an unusual layout...few makers used it because it made casting the housing so much more complicated.

[JV Puleo]

Not much today. I had a couple of interruptions but I did make this impromptu shaft collar to aid in holding the boring bar while I take the gear box off and on.

 

 

Then I did a few more cuts. I'm up to .480 and I'll stop at .500 so only two more.

 

 

The worst problem was that when I went too use a 1" collet on the lathe I noticed that the little pin that keeps the collet from turning had fallen out. The collet adapter is one of the very few tools that I've bought new and even remembered where I'd bought it. I needed the dimensions of the pin because length is critical and, much to their credit, they were able to look the part up and tell me. I ordered them immediately...of course I have to get 25 of them when I need one but still, that is something I use so often I'd feel naked without it.

[JV Puleo]

The last cut. This is at .500. Theoretically, it should be a 2.25 radius. If it is off, and it may be, it is likely slightly undersize.

 

 

 

I tried it with the collar I'd made. Because this is rusty, it's oversize by about .005. It seems to be very close. The collar is the same nominal size as the ring that will go here to hold a bushing.

 

 

I then started on the ring, drilled and reamed to 1.25".

 

 

Then counterbored for the flange on the end of the bushing.

 

 

And the back faced off so that it is about .060 too thick.

 

 

The last step is to turn the ring to size. This is probably the most critical part since it has to sit tight in the seat I've made and allow the 1-1/4 alignment bar to pass through. Fitting this is going to be challenging but my intention is to go about .002 oversize and gradually take it down either by grinding or, more likely by just holding a big fine file up against it while it spins. We'll see...that's tomorrow's challenge. I've also ordered some C360 bronze bar to make the bushing. If I read the specs correctly, this is often used for high impact bushings.

Edited December 1, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

I put the sleeve on a mandrel and turned it down to 2.252....002 over the theoretical finished size.

 

 

And tried it in the housing. To my amazement it went in first time....just a little too tight but very very close.

 

 

I put it back in the lathe and held a fine file up against it to take off perhaps a thousandth and it fit perfectly. I rarely use that word for my work but it's appropriate here.

 

 

With that done, I set it up on the mill to mark the holes for the attaching bolts.

 

 

Two marks, 45 degrees apart.

 

 

Then I drilled through at .257...large enough to that a 1/4-20 tap will not score the sides of the hole.

 

 

Then the top hole was bored out to 3/8", the OD of the head of a 1/4-20 socket head cap screw.

 

 

I followed that with a long 3/8 end mill to counterbore the lower hole. This was the only fly in the ointment because the long end mill bent slightly so that the counterbore isn't quite in line with the hole. The solution is to turn the head of the cap screw down a bit...only a few thousandths.

 

 

It did work...as you can see here.

 

 

And with a test bushing slid in to make sure the screw head isn't obstructing it.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[JV Puleo]

First up today I put in the second hole for attaching the ring.

 

 

Then took it down by .050 to bring it to exactly 1" wide. (give or take .005!)

 

 

Then I made two alignment bushings out of 3/8" rod. One has a #7 hole to align the drill and the other a 3/16" hole for the tap.

 

 

I positioned the ring in the housing and used a drop of super glue to hold it fast. That probably wasn't needed but it can't hurt.

 

 

Then it all went back together with these shaft collars to keep it from moving horizontally. The bar through the center has a hole in it that allows the alignment bushing to slide it.

 

 

In that position I drilled the first hole with one bushing and tapped it with the other.

 

 

You can just see the end of the tap coming through the hole. I wanted through holes to get the chips out.

 

 

I tried a cap screw in the threaded hole, got it stuck inside the bar and spent an hour figuring out how to get it out...of course, when I did have a good idea it just popped out. I had to reduce the diameter of the head to get it in. The nominal size is 3/8" but perfect alignment here is almost impossible (for me)...it's very close but not really perfect.

 

 

I then tried my test bushing to make sure the head of the cap screw was below the surface...

 

 

And then the bar to make sure it was still in line with the boring fixture.

 

 

Last up, I drilled and tapped for the second hole but because the first screw in in place, and it's tight, I didn't need the bar.

 

 

I do not intend to take this out again. The fit is too good and there is always a chance I won't be able to get it back exactly as it is. I should probably Locktite the screws but I won't do that until I've made the bushing and test fitted the torque tube & pinion. Even then, I'll do them one at the time so as not to disturb anything.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)