Technical Car guy? Could you do this crap and sleep at night?

Hey Danny
What the hell are Carter pins?
Go ahead, blame it on speel cheek!

 

Seems like 3 kind of people do this stuff
1: People whon't don't no better
2: People who are desperate, jeep stuck on the rocks
3: People who don't care as long as it sells fast.

Yes - no?

 

I've always heard "Carter keys"

 

Bought an old Chevy pickup in the early sixties. All the fuses had been replaced with live .22 rounds. Fortunately none of them blew before I found them.

 

They are split pins in the UK. Bob

 

Not making a federal case of this but common sense tells most anyone that the pins aren't for holding the nut in place when tight, and I could easily debate that it does serve that purpose. However in my case had the nuts loosened up with the possibility of it coming off completely, which certainly was entirely possible considering the condition of the car at purchase I'd have been up the well talked about creek with no paddle. This reasoning then tells me they are there to hold the nut in place and prevent backing off and causing a preventable occurrence that could possibly cause serious injury or ones demise.
I choose to respond because new younger folks are just starting out and they are learning from us older guys. Believe me if cotter pins and castellated nuts were not needed, my engineering education knows the time, money and installation of them would never have been required because of the cost in requiring them and the labor involved in manufacturing and installation.
BTW when using nails, its best to match the size of the hole your working with. I've done this countless times with no bad results. End of subject matter for me.

 

Post 41 and 43 are giving y'all clues, ,but I'll spell it out for ya. Take another good look at pic 1. Not only does it have nails as pins, but does not have nuts. And, both ends of that idler arm are fastened the same way!
You can see both of them in the same pic.

Roger

 

Looks like the p.o. Had it out for you.....

 

Hope Lloyd doesn't mind but I have an idler arm story some may chuckle (or cringe) at.
In the mid 70's I had a 65 ElCamino, original 327/4 speed, also had a canopy on it and often took it steelhead fishing on some of Oregons' famous coastal rivers.
One particular trip my pal and I took off after work on Friday so we could get an early start, got to our planned stop fairly late and slept in the back, in the morning we still had about five miles to get to our favorite spot, washboard gravel road, many turns and elevation changes.
We had only gone a short distance and the steering wheel started shaking violently, at first, thought it was the rough road, it was not, got it stopped and crawled under it to find the idler arm had completely seperated. Thinking about the terrain traveled the night before we both said in unison "that was f#@king close".
We rummaged around in our gear and found a wire chain style fish stringer, jammed the idler arm back together, wrapped the stringer around the idler arm, it seemed to work fine so we went on our way, ultimately drove it clear back home at highway speeds about 60 miles.

 

On the other side of the Atlantic, they are known as "split Pins".

 

Do you also know what everybody else has missed?

I'll give you a clue................... The actual idler arm is upside down.
So you might as well add a "bearing kit" to it while it's out.


Lug nuts put on upside down are good for "U" bolts [over axles] .
My husband used to do this on Trailers to get the extra thread of a longer nut.

 

How many different ways have you had "experts" tell you how a cotter pin is supposed to be installed?
More than you would think!
https://www.google.com/search?q=cor...XVPn0KHUSuAwEQ_AUoAXoECA8QAQ&biw=1280&bih=752

 

when I got my 46 Willys, every single castle nut and shock washer was held in place with a nail. The only place I found actual cotter pins was in the axle shafts, If I remember correctly. Probably because they had never been opened before.

Other than being sharp on the end, I don't think there was a problem with using nails, they had clearly been in there for a while. But I use cotter pins when replacing them mainly because it doesn't look as goofy. And less likely to get cut on them as it's easier to bend the cotter pin flush, harder to do with a nail.

I finally broke down an ordered an assortment of cotter pins about 8 years ago, I used to preciously keep the ones I remove and straighten them back out again. But now I never re-use the cotter pins, I pull them and toss them. Mostly because I'm lazy, and have tons of new cotter pins.

 

Thanks to Scottyt there is a bearing kit on the way Thanks again man

 

Lol. That's nothing. You should have a look at what farmers get away with.

 

If you're of a certain age you remember this show. I don't remember any of the episodes, except one. Davey built a soapbox derby race car, and he was on track to win the checkered flag - but at the last moment lost a front wheel. He forgot to install a cotter pin. Bummer for Davey.

 

Watched that show all the times a kid. I remember that one. lol.

 

Early in my career as a collision repairer, we had a customer bring in a recently-purchased OT car because it wouldn't align. A little detective work later, we found it had been cut across the floor and gas welded together. Bad enough, but the real killer was that they had cut too short, and had a strip of sheetmetal about an inch wide rocker to rocker. Wasn't even fully welded. Had a ton of sealer over the joint. Miracle it stayed together long enough to sell. Last I saw it, they were headed back to the seller with it on a rollback.

 

^^^Used to be fairly common to do this; make one car out of two wrecks^^^. That's the thing about "uni-body" cars; it's actually "fairly easy" to do. The really stupid thing about this Charger, was the guy had traded the 64 Ford Fairlane Psuedo-Thunderbolt his Dad had built for him, as PART TRADE for the Charger. What an ideopathic moron! I still remember his name, and this was in about 1971; that's how much he stood out. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Oh i could tell you stories from my 30 plus years of body shop nightmares lol. I've seen some sketchy shit. I've got this OT car in the shop currently, someone else started the job, I'm the relief pitcher. Filler cracking in the quarters. Grind it all out to find that they tried to glue skins on with body filler C'mon man... I've even seen shock towers installed with pop rivets....

 

What? That doesn't work?

 

Yep sure does, if you don't take pride in what you do i guess.

 

Actually it works out great for me, i charge double to redo crap

 

The old "top and tail". Cut the windshield posts at the seam, cut the body right behind the door, combine the two and make one good car. I used to see them cut like that all the time, sitting on a roll back going somewhere to get put together. I think insurance companies used to allow it to keep from totaling out cars. Now they figure less lawsuits to just go ahead and total them.

 

I know this is off topic here. [But fitting to the thread title]

I would consider this the "Michaelangelo of bodywork"

 

Holy Shit!!! That is just amazing.

 

WTF!!!
Thats a tough act to follow, the example I planned on showing is "so not worthy".

 

Funny you mention "forgot to install a cotter pin"! When I was adjusting the clutch linkage a while back, I would put the cotter pin back in place just out of habit, but only placing it there, not bending it over so that i wouldn't lose it. Once I got the clutch cable adjusted properly, I had forgot to bend the pin back over.

A week or 2 later while I was driving down the road coming back home from work, I hear a loud POP and my clutch doesn't work anymore. Well, the un-bent cotter pin had slid out, and the bell housing was now full of a mangled up clutch cable, which had also managed to crack my clutch disc.

I'll never forget that, it was a bone-head mistake!

 

This reminds me of a time several years ago I was working in a hot rod shop and given an Anglia that a customer brought in because he wasn't satisfied with the work the previous shop had done. He wasn't a car guy but wanted an Anglia and bought this one. I got underneath and looked at get rear suspension. It not only wasn't safe to drive, but really wasn't even safe to hold the car up! I got my boss over there and we both examined this abortion. He said to roll it in the corner and he would call the previous shop. I did and happened to wander into the office and catch my boss sayings, "I didn't say you were a terrible mechanic, I said they should take your tools away from you and break all you fingers with a hammer!" Thankfully the other shop closed, my boss and I retired and when we see each other at shows, we discuss the finer points of reshaping fingers with hammers. Incidentally, we rebuild the entire rear suspension and it cost almost twice as much as if it would have had we had done it originally and not reworked the monkey'wonderland.

 

Bumper didn't look right , so I crawled under for a look