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helpful home made tools

atownxj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
appleton wi
thought it might be fun to talk about the little, and home made tools that make life in the shop just alittle nicer. one that pops right in my head is the "silver sharpie" there GGGREAT!!!!
 
I've heard of people making Dana axle housing spreaders, never seen any in depth discusion on how to make one. I think it would be helpfull and usefull to allot of people here, especially those of us who have a Dana/Dana setup and have the skill to regear but not the $$$ for a special tool. Last time I checked it was around $400 if I recall.
 
I've heard of people making Dana axle housing spreaders, never seen any in depth discusion on how to make one.

I found this a couple years ago and misplaced the picture and found it again with a quick search.


Seems to be pretty easy to make, some plate, all thread and a couple nuts and washers.
ravu69.jpg


A press brake using a press
05-05-09_1401.jpg


And another version
100_3948-R.jpg




And while this thread isnt all about tools, there are a ton of awesome ideas for fabrication
http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=833341
 
king pin remover, 7/8ths hex, heat and bend,
IMG_0410.jpg
 
I hope that T-60 welded to a combination wrench comes up in here. That's one I wish I had around.
 
Spanner wrench for axles is ez, you can just find a large nut that fits and weld it to a piece of tube.

I like the king pin remover. I think Im going to have to go coppy that. Never can seem to find a King Pin 60 that doesnt look like its sat on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for 20 years.
 
Bending up flathead screwdrivers can come in handy - I've got a couple that are "purpose-bent." One for servicing a front end on a 1990-ish Nissan Sentra (didn't want to drop the final drive into the transaxle case while changing halfshafts,) and a 1/4"x8" cabinet flattie with the last 1/4" bent into a slight reverse hook for a tappet grabber.

Got a bridge puller kit I made for pulling an AW4 apart, and a pair of "large snapring chopsticks" I made by taking 1/4" aluminum rod stock and drilling/tapping the end with a #4-40 hole, and then putting in a #4-40 headless setscrew. Call those two about $20 worth of stock and screws to save whatever the "special puller kit" would have cost me - something like $200-$250 bones, I'm sure (and this was a good ten years ago...)

Large wooden blocks can come in handy. Use a 1-1/4" and a 3/8" Forstner bit to drill holes to keep the valvetrain sorted while you're working, make sure to mark one end as FRONT. One row of 1-1/4" holes to hold the tappets, one row of 3/8" holes to hold the pushrods, and another to keep the rockers/pivots/bridges/screws sorted. (Even if you don't plan to reuse the parts, you still want to keep them sorted for inspection. If the block is large enough, a series of 5/8" holes will also serve to retain spark plugs in order - you'll probably want something like a 4"x8" or so to make this work.) Use hardwood, soak with clean engine oil (varnish/paint can flake off onto parts.)

Foot-long bits of rubber or vinyl hose make for good screw guides - whether you're trying to keep from dinging up your crankshaft or just getting things together.

Keep your old pushrods - they usually make handy alignment pins for fabrication and assembly work. A bit of black heatshrink to show that they're tools and not parts won't go amiss ("blacklining" is the standard method I use for decommissioning anything. A climbing rope that has been retired to utility use will be cut to length, burned to seal, and an inch or so of black POHST will be applied to each end to show its status. Ditto toothbrushes that get transferred to the toolbox - I don't want them to get mixed up with anything I actually use on my teeth before I managed to get them all greasy. You get the idea.) Keeping assorted sizes of threaded rod about will give you more flexibility for similar results - you probably won't need any one piece longer than a foot. I try to keep SAE around up to 1/2" UNC and UNF, and ISO up to M10-1.5 (also comes in really handy for fabbing up tools, pullers, pushers, and the like in a pinch.)

I'm going to have to write up a list of "shop tips" one of these days, aren't I? Most of the stuff may not fall under AdFab, but I'm sure most of it will be useful to someone-or-other...

Old tappet casings come in handy for screw-ram pressor feet, and the slight crown usually results in not marring or gouging the sheetmetal. Pull the snapring and plunger, you can use a nut and washer to bear against the snapring on reassembly (or the snapring itself) to retain the tappet casting to whatever you're using as a jackscrew.

Keep checking around, and you'll manage to find a tool that is somewhat like narrow duckbill pliers turned inside-out (the jaws move apart when the handles are squeezed.) I picked up a pair of these somewhere twenty-odd years ago, and I use them all over the place! I no longer have any idea where I got them, why I got them, or how much I got them for; but they're handy!

Got a junk box full of screws? MSC Direct has a wifty little tool called a "Thread Detective" - SAE and ISO common threads to 1/2" (SAE) or M12 (ISO.) Worth the bux - about twenty-five of them, I think - to get that mess finally sorted once and for all! Not a direct fab tool, but it comes in really handy. It's a series of inside/outside threaded aluminum bungs on a cable with an eye/loop crimped into each end for easy hanging. Easier to work with than leaf gages and a caliper/mike/rule...

A good, strong, small flashlight is a good tool for checking for clearance in between parts before/after assembly. I favour the Surefire G2Z for this. It will go anywhere your hand will fit, and it has the Maglites beat all hollow for brightness. Check for gaps between sheetmetal, mill stock, castings, whatever - you can also use a bright light with a well-focused beam for checking for variations in the surface of a sheetmetal part or a large plate/bar by shining the lamp across the surface and looking for shadowed areas (old body shop trick - that and spraying a "guide coat" of primer before a final sanding. High spots will strip first.)

Working with a bunch of fasteners, and you want to keep them handy and NOT rolling about? Wrap a layer of duct tape about your forearm - sticky side out - and use that to keep your screws/nuts/rivets/whatever handy. Works especially well for Nylon, rubber, or aluminum bits that don't stick to magnets...
 
Have a 1.75" die for your bender, and don't want to spend the few hundred bucks for a 1.5" die?

Make a full-length bend out of 1.75 x .120 and cut along the neutral axis...

4268356588_1ac239df02.jpg


Now you've got a sleeve to fit over your die and reduce it down to 1.5".

It actually did a pretty good job for bending this 1.5" x .120 shock tower brace...

4276083368_7819af686d_o.jpg


4268356718_844e9ddc23_o.jpg
 
king pin remover, 7/8ths hex, heat and bend,

you could do this with a bolt and 2 nuts, too.

that half tube is a pretty cool idea, chris.

I made a tool to set the bearing preload in my 8.25 out of an old bent tie rod, a 1/2" bolt, and a 36mm nut. it's about 3 feetish long and sticks out of the axle tube far enough to get a socket on it but not so far that you whack your shins on it if you leave it in the tube. if i had more stock i would have made 2 because you constantly have to go from side to side when setting the carrier...
 
I made a tool to set the bearing preload in my 8.25 out of an old bent tie rod, a 1/2" bolt, and a 36mm nut. it's about 3 feetish long and sticks out of the axle tube far enough to get a socket on it but not so far that you whack your shins on it if you leave it in the tube. if i had more stock i would have made 2 because you constantly have to go from side to side when setting the carrier...

i did that as well with some solid stock and 2 dana30 unit bearing nuts

i also made a little tool for drilling out an aw4 output housing to clock your t-case. just a piece of dom that fits snug over the output shaft with a plate welded to it with a hole that fits a 7/16" bolt thatwill go through the output housing, and a smaller hole next to it that you fit a punch in to mark where to drill on the output housing.
 
i like the clocking ring idea

i cut a cheapo open ended wrench in half to get at the pesky top t case bolts...works good, i drilled a hole in the cut end so i could put a hook in there and get leverage
 
i also made a little tool for drilling out an aw4 output housing to clock your t-case. just a piece of dom that fits snug over the output shaft with a plate welded to it with a hole that fits a 7/16" bolt thatwill go through the output housing, and a smaller hole next to it that you fit a punch in to mark where to drill on the output housing.

I did something similar:
http://www.bsfab.net/?p=23
Billy
 
Trucks on Spike had a pretty cool episode where they used a drum brake from a D60 i believe, welded it to some tubing and made a tool stand for a few different tools around the shop. I'll have to see if i can find the episode on you-tube
 
Seems to be pretty easy to make, some plate, all thread and a couple nuts and washers.
ravu69.jpg

Funny....
That's mine. I thought I recognized all the crap in the background. This is a really easy tool to make and was extremely usefull setting up mt D60 and 44.

Here's another one I made do press inner axle seals in. I used some bearing race setting discs, but you could use some plate or big washers...

IMG_0031.jpg


If you make either of these, make sure to put a little grease on the threads.
 
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