It's busy at the SOS Possum Park and Bellytank workshop lately but some of this has been posted elsewhere....
I'm edging ahead on the differential transplant job....from the Borg Warner to a GM 10 bolt.
I had a crack at removing the plug welds that hold the axle tubes into the centre housing on the weekend, I am not exactly sure where the material sits on the *GRTOH( generally recognized table of hardness)but it was harder than what they make drill bits out of....I had a certain Colonel suggest cobalt drills....I baulked at the price and anyway I flattened the tip of my centre-punch on it, another suggestion was stellite... but they'll cost me $200 and then I still have to mount the diff centre somewhere on my drill press table and that strikes me as potentially troublesome.
The maintenance man at work Markput me onto a small engineering works out near the airport ...."Yeah, we'll have a look at that, we'll be able to get them out"....so I'm off to see Stephen on Saturday morning. I will take the chunk of hollow bar that I got yesterday which will be used to turn up the inserts which we'll use to slide into the axle tubes and attach the new diff centre . It is 50 ID by 70 OD , it wasn't cheap
*
1./ Harder than goats knees.
2./ Harder than chinese algebra
3./ Harder than a mother in law's stare
I could have a crack at them with a torch but the housing is either grey or graphite iron and will likely let go before the weld . The welds look to be about half an inch dia. and as I said they are so hard that they took the point off a centre punch, I made a well in one with a burr ( so a drill could at least start)but a bit still just felt like it was sitting in a bearing, made heat and made the bit blunt but that was it.
All of the welds have a bubble in the top of them which makes it look like they were very hot and then probably because of the bulk of the housing cooled very quickly and are probably pure martensite.
Sparky , or Bill Smith in Phoenix Arizona was the guy who organised the 10 bolt and Torsen centre as well as the housing for us, the Norm brought it back from Bonneville.....Sparky said...
"we take them out with a torch----leaves room for BIG rosett welds thought about trying a hole saw!!!"
I was standing there with my set of hole saws......and thought hmm , nah...... pretty hard to wrangle one of those without a guide bit in it....
I figure annealing them and drilling or a torch is probably going to be the final chapter in this short but thrilling story.........
I need to get the insert pieces turned and so I'm going to take it all to the above mentioned workshop and see what they reckon.....
Quote from: wobblywalrus on May 17, 2011, 11:37:20 PM
A stone bit in an angle grinder?
anything that is small enough to get to them doesn't have enough edge speed to do anything, except the die grinder and with the amount of progress it made I estimated the entire job to take about 3 infinitys........
I'm pretty sure Sparky will get the biscuit on this one, for cryin' out loud he's done it before.......
So, Bill do you run a shrink weld around the inside of the tube after you blow the the plug welds out or what?Huh
c'mon give over..
To Which Sparky replied...
."When we took the tubes out of the Caddy 10-12 we tried several things. But the way we got them out was to cut the plugs out and rotate the housing with a 36" pipe wrench to make sure that it was all out then cut the tube off flush, then carefully cut it out of the housing. inserted the new tubes and allinged the new tubes. We hard tacked the out side with 3 welds but did not weld insided at all for this was a frt driving axle and we need to be able to install an inner seal. we are now working on another that we will tack inside and out before we reweld plugs completely
"
hah, Had the angle grinder not been making such a racket I might well have heard the little voice in my head saying " nay laddy! dooon't cut the toooobs off yet".....
As it stands they are cut off flush, I'll report back on Saturday with what I hope is a successful extraction........
Gidge 348 from the DLRA said....
"
If you are having problems drilling anything a trick I learnt from an old engineer is to get a masonary bit....
(yes masonary as in concrete) and then grind a face on the bit.
I do not know what they make those tips out of but I guarantee it will drill through anything.....
Regards
ian..."
Stellite probably..Rockwell C 60-62 hardness even into the "red" range so it works by heating the job til it softens...that's what the little piece is in the tip of the masonry bit......it's a lot cheaper than a stellite drill
Went to the machine shop, no worries ! on the way out I see what looks like 2/3rds of a car...." what are you doing with that?"........"Oh I wish it'd go to the tip, it's the boss's"...
"er how much does he want for it?"
to cut a long story short I drove home( seeings how I just happened to be in a TOW-TRUCK) with a Ford Prefect missing the firewall and front bodywork back to the middle of the roof
$300....
Just to refresh the memory We have this sitting in my back yard....
I was going to use a Prefect front end....this one has everything...
and a tiny little diff.....
Except for the odd nut and bolt It's complete from the floor down.....So....I have the front end needed for the little rust racer, the rear end , four wheels, suspension ,steering , brakes( yes cable brakes).....
The original idea was to build a small tube chassis......hmmmm, but now I have one I can narrow a lot and shorten a little....check out the cute little steering box.
you'll notice Colonel that is the horn wire appearing at the end of the steering column........
The Reverend dug this up about Prefects...
Some info on the Australian Ford Prefect for those interested: (The following is from
http://ford-popular.com/)
Ford Motor Company of Dagenham designed the 10hp 7W car for launch in March 1937, of a style and design which to which the new motor user was to become very attached, and where Ford parted from vehicle model designation of identifying letters and numbers to name it the 'Prefect'. To the motoring public it became the 'Ford Pop' or 'sit up and beg' Ford.
The 7W Ten used the 10hp 1172cc side valve engine, on a 94" wheel base chassis, continuing the proven layout of transverse front and rear spring with torque tube. The 7W was offered in both 2 door with 4 light (side windows) and 4 door (6 light) form, all with deluxe features, fold down boot panel and removable spare wheel locker lid, opening windscreen etc.
The frontal and side aspect of this model was not dissimilar to the more basic 7Y model offered later with 8hp engine. However the launch of the Prefect E93A in 1939 showed many differences. Gone was the sloping front cowl to be replaced by a V shaped radiator grill, the centre hinged bonnet gave way to the 'alligator' type bonnet of one piece hinged at the rear. From now on the Ford Prefect was only offered in 4 door (6 light) saloon form on the home market, as it continued until it's demise.
There were variants of tourer and van, these were offered only for the export market. The Australian market, at this time assembling knock down kits and part builds at the Geelong assembly plant, had additional models of E03A produced 1939 to 1945 and A53A produced 1946 to 1948 in car and van form, these were exclusive to their own market.
In 1948 the Ford Prefect E493A was given another slight make over externally, replacing the previous free standing headlamps to those set into the front wing. Over the production period of the Ford Prefect 'upright' which finished in 1953, the vehicle remained virtually unchanged, there were slight alterations, a swage line here, a badge change, interior detail changes etc, but it retained rubber running boards throughout the production when other manufacturers had radical style changes. Ford replaced it with the Ford 100E Prefect at the end of 1953, but the success of the 10hp Ford Prefect E93A and E493A together with the export variants achieved a production build of 320,336 units. This in itself was an achievement which Ford could have been proud of.
The fledgling motoring public took the Ford Prefect to heart, the cars served well, enabling those days of 'happy motoring' to be enjoyed by the masses, a true family car, one of the Ford family. These vehicles are still worth preserving, capable of giving good reliable service. Do not be in a rush, they are not a sports car, custodians of survivors get great pleasure and enjoyment from using these vehicles which are very capable of normal motoring use at a very comfortable speed. The 10hp 1172cc Ford Prefect restorer or repairer is able to obtain most items required for continued use and maintenance from specialist mail order spare parts suppliers, who are able to ship world wide. further details please click here.
Wait a minute.... Its a Ford!!!
What kind of confused bi-brand kid are you? This is Australia mate, and it is either Ford OR Holden, as George would say, you are either with us or against us ( rolleyes).
Any way, that lunatic rant aside, I too have some ideas about how to do this and I think your idea of using rails is on the money, but maybe not the existing ones...
Here are the dimensions of the frame anyway, I can model her up in no time to test various ideas. Just need dimensions of the tank!
You still haven't answered my question... is this to be a racing tank or Belly tank lite?
Reverend H+
I sent you a text yesterday saying ...."I'm not building another race car anytime soon"....... This will be a back in the day job....narrow the chassis after lopping it fore and aft of the transverse spring mounts......it's ten inches longer than it needs to be, I can narrow most of the cross members......box the frame rails in .
The main approach is to build it for Chopped and it's eighth mile dirt drag......I figure we get it running with the 250 twin and then go looking for something with a little more stick like a Firestorm/Superhawk. I'll try and get some measurements from the SeaFury tank this week....
I drilled the rivets out of the middle three crossmembers ...the body is welded onto the chassis at the back but I'll soon have it off...
You know those flat wrecking bars that have a claw at each end...and a sticker that says "do not strike, wear protective goggles" ...yeah well that's sensible advice ...I dunno where one end of mine went when I was using it to pry the body off the chassis rails and giving it some help with a ball-pein...there's two inches missing , no sign of it....
You are going to be one of those guys in the news 20 years from now who has their head X-rayed and they find the reason for your 20 years of headaches due to a rusting 2" piece of metal lodged in your brain somewhere behind your eye...
Check now for any sticky bits on your head that could in fact be an entry wound.
Phone flat yesterday as I was, got some crappy cold that makes me feel like I've smoke 20 rollies without any filters.
Given this is steel what say we cut it in half first so we know excatly what we are playing with? This one is too small to waste any millimetres on the interior.
I can come around this weekend with a big sheet of paper so we can get an acurate measure regardless.
rH+
Quote
I can come around this weekend with a big sheet of paper so we can get an acurate measure regardless.
Yes.That will nail it. Have the sawzall of death too now....
Can't find any OBVIOUS entry wound.....I might pee it out , or cough it up..... was a memorable day for hand injuries...swollen finger, couple of hot angry little cuts , a burn. Nothing got mangled in the dismantlement but I do have to get it stripped down and off the truck hopefully sneak it into the back yard behind the shed out of eyesight or at least where it can't be seen from the kitchen and regarded as an eyesore
I spoke to Wayne Mumford a month or so ago. He bought Russell out and has remotored the tank with a 2litre Toyota which has been "built".......he's been having a little rest from the DLRA but has built a trailer and will be there next year, it'll go fast.
...few understand what I'm trying to do , but they vastly outnumber those who understand why..