Suspension dismantling - balls and shafts

[David Ellery]

Alex go carefully with the reassembly of the guide rod and springs as once compressed there is a hell of alot of force waiting to let go and you have to lift the whole lot into position with the bogie frames before letting of the tension. I used a builders sash cramp and ended up welding it to both balls as I had 2 attempts initially without welding and the sash slipped off with explosive results If you can get hold of the spring dismantling tool (Australian) that will make the job so much easier, as I was offered one to use after I had done the job and wished it had shown up earlier ! Good Luck and thanks for posting the pics. Look forward to them ! David.

[mkc2862]

Hi Alex, guys,

I appreciate the costs involved Alex and I thought that would be the prohibitive thing. I work in a workshop which has a CNC lathe and as I was reading this post about cutting the rods etc I thought how easy it would be to knock some up on the 'NC at work. Of course doing 'foreigners' is frowned upon at work, but sometimes we get away with it

Having a carrier or any other sort of wartime vehicle is out of the question for me at the moment and the froreseeable future - no money, no room, no time. I keep myself amused by collecting drawings and pictures of things I'd like to have or make. Oneday, I might even do something.

Incidentally, there was a carrier here less than a K away for sale some years ago. At the time the bloke wanted $12K for it. I don't know where it ended up.

Enjoying your photo's and conversations on these restorations.

Cheers,

Michael

[cantankrs]

Hi Michael,

If I won a big Lotto, a CNC lathe would really be somewhere on the list!

Regards

Alex

[cantankrs]

Dad tried to cut one of his oxy'd shafts in the power hacksaw across the collar that the centre spring retainers bear against (to check if it was a sleeve) and it just rubbed back and forth with NO cut progress.

When he tried to part a bit of rod off from one of the ball/cones in the lathe it took the tip off the parting tool.

So he cut through the collar with a cut off wheel and found that it's definitely a sleeve as you can see the join but as to how it's fastened he's not sure. He didn't find a cross pin, nor bronze. He concedes that it was in the dark so possibly he may have ground away the pin with the width of the disc..

He wonders what process they used to heat treat these? The parting tool got under the surface of the rod O. K. but had trouble further in. Maybe some sort of spring steel? They were made of good stuff!

Regards

Alex

[cantankrs]

Hi,

Anyone able to post some pics of the tool mentioned by David in his post above?

Thanks

Alex

[colin jones]

Hello everyone, I asume this is the tool dave is talking about.
Colin.

[David Ellery]

Yep thats the tool, simple and effective. As Rob Beale posted about this tool earlier, if your using Brit/Canadian rods you can machine the inner workings to suit the different threads .Australian part number 317. David.