Shop Made Tools

[Prokop]

Here is the first picture



The square - I drilled 1/2" hole in and milled out the corners using 1/4" end mill. Not as tight as normal socket, but holds well enough for the purpose.


Yes, the socket route is how people often do it - using a grinder - but I could do better and learn something in the process.

Should I harden it, what do you think? I have a coal forge too, it is just matter of doing it.

[Lu47Dan]

Here is the first picture



The square - I drilled 1/2" hole in and milled out the corners using 1/4" end mill. Not as tight as normal socket, but holds well enough for the purpose.


Yes, the socket route is how people often do it - using a grinder - but I could do better and learn something in the process.

Should I harden it, what do you think? I have a coal forge too, it is just matter of doing it.

I would not harden it. get it too hard and your pins will snap off.

[mars-red]

... not sure if I should heat treat it or not.

Yes, you should! Half the fun for me, is heat treating. After hardening, stick it in your oven at 400 degrees F. Kitchen ovens are terrible for temperature regulation, but that should get you in the ballpark to get hardness without being too brittle. If you want to be more accurate about it, polish it after hardening, clean with solvent, then temper until it starts to show purple. Oven is a lot less fiddling around though, and I'm sure would work fine for this application.

Nice job on the tool. I have some work to do on my car that will require a couple of special tools that I plan on making, too.

-Max

[Lee Cordochorea]

Absolutely you should harden & temper! 4140 is one of the more forgiving steels; responds to the magnet trick, does not get super hard, and is much tougher afterward. I concur with the 400 to 450F tempering.

[dlsinak]

Absolutely you should harden & temper! 4140 is one of the more forgiving steels; responds to the magnet trick, does not get super hard, and is much tougher afterward. I concur with the 400 to 450F tempering.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the "magnet trick"?

Dennis

[TGTool]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the "magnet trick"?

Dennis

At approximately the transformation temperature where the crystal structure changes and the part should be quenched, steel paradoxically becomes non-magnetic. Thus you can check when it's time to quench by touching with a magnet to see if it's still attracted or not.

The cleverest application of this I've seen was at a Link Belt plant (remember them?). There was a part with a splined end that needed to be hardened though the rest of the shaft did not. They set up a moving conveyor with electromagnets to hold the shaft hanging below as it moved. Adjacent induction coils heated the end of the part but when it became non-magnetic it dropped off right into the quench tank.

[Prokop]

I used chunk of door shafting to make stub milling adapter for a knee mill:

[ncjeeper]

Shop grill.

[Toolguy]

Looks like a wiener!

[PixMan]

Shop grill.

Cool....er....hot!

Does the food cooked on it have that "Castrol infused" flavor?

[DICKEYBIRD]

Shop grill.

BMC A-Series pan, yes?

[ncjeeper]

Cool....er....hot!

Does the food cooked on it have that "Castrol infused" flavor?

Not anymore.

[ncjeeper]

BMC A-Series pan, yes?

Cant remember. It was in my scrap pile.

[_Paul_]

That panned out nice

[mars-red]

A pair of shop made tools today, but not my usual sort of stuff. In this case, I needed something quick and practical. The back-story is that I'm replacing the DMF (dual mass flywheel) and timing chains on my car. The timing chains are on the wrong side of the engine, so the transmission has to be pulled... no big deal since I had to do the flywheel anyway. The transfer case needs to be removed from the transmission for it to come out without a bunch of hassle. The trouble spot is with the driveshaft flanges. The front driver side driveshaft goes to an output flange on the transmission, and the front passenger side driveshaft goes to an output flange on the transfer case... the power output for that wheel passes directly through the transfer case. There is a 6mm allen bolt (real funky looking thing, with a taper at the bottom of the head) sunk about 11 inches into the center of the passenger side output flange, and the transfer case won't separate from the transmission until that critter has been removed. Of course, there is a VW/Audi special tool for this... but me being me, I decided to improvise. Well, I was a great big dummy this time and my improvisation involved a 3/8" to 1/4" socket adapter that I turned down in the lathe so that it would fit through this narrow bore through the flange body. The walls of the adapter were awfully thin, yet for some reason I thought it would be fine. Well, it wasn't fine at all and that little adapter split right open about 10.5" inside that bore... and was stuck. Rarely have I wanted so much to kick myself. It was such a thin band of metal left around the edge, that even my strongest magnets had no hope of pulling it free (when the adapter split open, it wedged itself in the bore quite firmly). So I had to make a special tool for dealing with the result of my own stupidity, and then make the actual special tool for properly removing the bolt... what I should have just done in the first place. This bore through the drive flange is completely isolated from the innards of the transfer case and the innards of the transmission, so in theory I could safely (without risk of metal chips getting inside) drill a little bit into the split open adapter (which had maybe 3/32" of meat left at the business end before breaking through to the square drive), then drive something into it that was a real tight fit, and use that to work everything free. Turning a plug on the end of a long bar to fit the drilled adapter was no problem, but i needed a way to accurately drill the hole down this really long bore. I decided to make a drill extension, with the drill holder turned to a diameter that was a perfect sliding fit within the bore of the drive flange. It was made to hold one of my screw machine length drills, and the drill is secured by a pair of opposing set screws. The drill shank was a superb fit inside the holder, and the holder was such a great fit in the drive flange bore that I felt resistance from air compression.

Here you can see the extension drill after being used, I put red grease on the drill to help catch as many of the chips as possible. You can also see the aluminum rod I turned down to a friction-fit plug, with the successfully withdrawn adapter still stuck onto the end:


That worked like a charm, though it did take some serious tugging to remove the stuck part. The bolt threaded into the back of the aluminum rod was just to give it some extra length to pound on, and to give something to lever under in case it came down to that (but that turned out not to be necessary).

Now I had to make the correct tool for removing the bolt... the tool I should have just made in the first place. I took a length of 3/8" round mild steel and drilled into one end, then pressed in a length of 6mm allen key after I ground off the "L" end of it. I don't remember the exact size I drilled, it was whichever number drill was closest to halfway between the 6mm between flats and whatever the total OD works out to. It drove in pretty hard, but I sunk it down about an inch. I had ground that end with sharp corners to help it cut a little. I cross drilled the end of the the steel bar to fit a 1/8" tommy bar... but the tommy bar was no match for the torque required to remove this bolt. That sucker was pretty stubborn, probably due to that taper on the bottom of its head (that I didn't realize it had until after it was out). I ended up drilling out a 1/2" to 3/8" socket adapter, with a 3/8" diameter through hole, and welded it onto the end of the tool so I could get an impact gun on it. They were some of the worst welds of my life, for other reasons I won't even get into, I was cramped in a dark corner for the welding and this was the best I could do. It worked great, though!



In this pic, you can see the adorable little transfer case in front of the subframe:


And the transmission... heavier than it looks!


Note the little presents left by critters on top of the transmission. I have heard that strong dryer sheets work extremely well for keeping varmints out of engine bays, so I'm giving that a try.