home made tools and equipment...

I understand leverage, but somehow what you are doing escapes me. How do you put a lever/ fulcrum on a pin that is flush with the housing. Thanks!






Bones

 

Glad you asked that because I'm wondering too.

 

I'm not telling how old I am but, seems to me when I was a kid in Oklahoma there were still water and oil wells being sunk with percussion drills that worked something like that. Then they went to the modern day rotary rigs. Look out in the back 40 down at the ranch and see if there's not a water well drilling rig right there in your back yard

 

Yep, we had several Wells drilled on the ranch with that method, slow, but works!






Bones

 

Bones: he was trying to drive a pin out of a Cat track. He'd made a fixture to hold the item that wasn't getting the impact he needed to break the pin loose. He made a cage to hold the fulcrum.
Movin/on

 

Well that was the exact same thing I was driving, a track pin out of my D-6 Cat! But still don’t see it! I guess I’m just dense!




Bones

 

Built a welding cart for my mig machines . Added a little beadrolling and louvered the panel between welders and tanks .

 

Very nice !!

 

Love the "welder" cutout

 

Piston Vise for installing wrist pins in heated rods

Going to a machine shop and waiting for parts is a drag, so I started looking into how I can do things myself when possible. Most people want floating pins in their pistons, but many still have to use pressed fit pins. Hardly anyone press fits pins these days and they heat the rods instead. I always wondered about the process because the rods get hot enough to turn purple or blue during the process. So I did a little experimenting with an old rod and wristpin. Turns out that simply warming the rod end allowed the pin to slide in easily and the higher temp wasn't needed. A quick check with my infrared heat gun showed the rod end at about 400 (or less) degrees and thats way lower than the 800 or so degrees that it takes to put a blue tint on a rod. About 15/18 seconds with a simple propane torch did the job. It was suggested to me that a crock pot could be used with oil heated to a specific temperature and be more consistant with temp control. I may try that, but I don't have a crock pot handy. I do like that idea though.

Anyway, holding the piston still and having an adjustable stop is the first part of the equation. You still have to press the old pins out of the piston/rod assy no matter how you reinstall them. I picked up a small 4" Harbor Freight drill press vise for $25 as the basis for ths project. It works really well for the purpose at hand.

The basic vise with some aluminum jaws added will do the job. Being the anal person that I am, good enuff is never acceptable for me. I made some additional modifications to suit what I wanted, but they really aren't necessary. So here is the Piston Holder. My suggestion is to get some old pistons and rods and try it. Its cheaper than having a machine shop do even one set for you. Also, don't forget that rods have to be oriented for the bank of the engine they go in. My idea is make a mark with a permanent marker on the side of the rod and the piston so when I pick them up.......I know they are oriented correctly.
Edit: If I'm correct, it looks as though the crock pot option isn't doable because from what I can tell they only go to 300 degrees. I'm now looking into "Toaster Ovens" though. They go to 450 degrees apparently and there are lots of cheap ones on Facebook Marketplace. Probably $30 for a nice one.

 

Great idea!!



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I updated my cart with a neat decal, now it’s official



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A while back, I spent a day building a rod holder for my tig, only to find out Swag Off Road, has a real nice one for $45.00 including freight !

 

My nephew, the computer geek who’s never welded before asked me if I could teach him. He’s got an idea for server racks that’s going to require it. He also asked if I had any real projects to do? I said ohhhh yeah buddy all kinds of stuff. How about a hammer rack?
Here’s what he did!
I helped him square it up that’s it.

 

Someone left me alone with their iron worker the other day for 5 mins. I Made a few of these.
not sure where I’ll hang them yet.

 

Those work really well for hanging air tools too. I put a little top plate on them to keep the mud daubers from building nests in the air fitting holes.

 

Here is another shop tool that can be handy..........

Head Machine, Cam Checker, and even a Crankshaft Polisher all in one...............

This started out as a fixture to hold/orient heads when needing to work on them, and then sorta morphed into more. The thing is, the Head Holder and Camshaft Checker is pretty easy. Try to look at it as a basically simple conversion for them. I started with a used $125 Harbor Freight wood lathe off Facebook Marketplace. If not wanting to be able to polish crankshafts, you need no electrical power and its just a mechanical holding fixture. You can remove the legs and make it sit on a workbench and under a workbench when not in use.
The basic idea is that you use the 5" faceplate that comes with the lathe and bolt a small 4 jaw chuck to it. The chucks are available on Ebay. If planning to make a crank polisher, you need a 5" chuck $60. If you just want to do heads and cams you can buy a smaller chuck to bolt to the lathes original 5" faceplate. Bout $40.
You will also need two 8" faceplates. One of them needs to fit the thread on the lathe spindle. Mine was 1"-8. I found a new Craftsman for $20. The other faceplate will have the center bored out of it and a bushing installed and welded. You will also need a live center for the tailstock. There are a couple sizes. You need the larger size.
With this jig/machine, I can mount a head in it and rotate it to any angle for porting or other work. Trying to work on heads seems to always require proping them up with something to get a good angle to work on them. With this you just rotate to whatever angle you want. I can accurately check how far the valves move before coil bind occurs or before the retainer hits the seal. I can set the valve at the exact calculated lift the cam/rocker arm provides and see/measure how far below the deck the valve is. Easy to level the head for CCing. Some brands of heads have well positioned accessory bolt holes front and back. Others have less beneficial locations and I use a steel plate to adapt them to the faceplates. Others have NO accessory holes...........They won't work on this machine unless you make some different type of adapter. I can also disassemble the heads/valves easily with a breaker bar adapted to fit the tool post.
Switching from a faceplate to the 4 jaw chuck lets you install a camshaft and you can check all the events of the camshaft as well as the lift.

If anyone wanted to polish crankshafts, the 4 jaw chuck holds one end while the tailstock/live center holds the other. Adapting a DC motor and controller and some pulleys lets me rotate the crankshaft at appx 45 rpms and I can polish journals quickly. I'll post a picture of one that took about 20 seconds to polish and removed almost none of the diameter. Maybe a few tenths of a thousanth. Lots of cranks don't really need grinding to reuse, and many OLD cranks don't have any more turns left. So I also built a crankshaft polisher using the motor I removed from the lathe.

 

Here’s my one stop metal machine. My shop is pretty small, so I have a bead roller, foot operated shrinker, space for my shot bag, and Beverly shear all mounted together.

The bead roller is from JD2; I found it at a swap meet and I recently motorized it with a foot pedal (thanks Blue One for the guidance).

The mount for the shear was originally just for my 12” shot bag, and it’s mounted trailer hitch-style so I can take it off and use the full throat depth for the bead roller.

The shrinker is an old Lancaster style machine, but I wanted to free up both hands to control the metal so I added the foot actuator.

It looks like a lot in one spot, and it is. But it’s been super-handy and sturdy. I built it on a frame I had welded up for another purpose that I used on a whim, and now I can’t imagine working without it.



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i have done this very similiar thing.......

 

It makes the job to go faster and easier.
But where are your pics?

 

Saw on Facebook marketplace a handle for the 4 1/2" grinder. I wasn't spending $30. A little scrap and a couple hours later....

 

^ Thats a simple but good idea.

 

I saw that same add and was thinking about making my own similar to th one that T Hudson made.
I have to agree that 30 bucks is a bit much to spend on a handle to put on a 35 dollar grinder.

 

who tries to lean on the 4 1/2's that hard anyway!-get the 9"!

 

^^^Not leaning on the 4 1/2" grinder. It's about control. I like it.
Andy

 

would this work ?

 

Needs a bigger hammer head.

 

Another multi purpose tool I do not need

 

I like it!