Kevin,
Yeah, just like mom's clothes washing machine. You know; the one that
was there the whole time you were growing up.
Now you buy a washer and dryer, and hope to get 3 years out of it before
it has to be repaired. That is if it can be. Many seem to just sort-of
self destruct. Many times the parts cost more than a new unit!
For our Roller Rocker project we bought dowel pins from Holochrome, they
make pins, Allen bolts, Allen wrenches...etc.
Not too many years ago you could count on the pins being right on size!
As we were assembling the Rockers we noticed that some of the rollers
were tighter than others. We checked the pins with a "mic" and found
that they varied as much as one-half thousandth from the nominal of
.1875. They are advertised to be +0.0002, -0.0000
Although this doesn't affect our product, it sure was annoying! We spent
several hours gauging the hole in hundreds of rollers.
Jim Swarthout
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: TRF clutch croos shaft
Hi Don and others,
Last week I helped out a friend in our local club with his O/D
conversion project. He got all his parts from Rimmer Bros. The shaft was
drilled incorrectly, as we not only had to do away with the spring on
the end, but I wound up grinding off about 1/16" from the outside of the
aluminum casing to get the extra bit needed to keep the bearing from
binding on the fork. That makes the total mistake on the part of "the
guy who drills cross shafts for a living" about 3/4" or right around
there. Those last three words are probably spoken regularly at most
manufacturing facilities these days. "I'll just drill the hole right
around there...."
Where I work we have many very large pieces of pumping equipment. Up
to 75 HP Electric motors, various pumping systems for process water,
heating/cooling water for buildings, seawater, and other applications.
Many of these are as old as the buildings they're in, which could be
25-30 years. Some still have the original seals and bearings. When one
fails, we rebuild it with the best parts we can find. Very often (in
fact, in MOST cases) the new parts, especially seals, don't last more
than 4 or 5 years. I hate having to replace one of the older systems
with a new one. The quality of products these days just sucks! My take
on this is simply complete greed on the part of the corporate execs who
look only at how much, how fast, when can we sell the company, and then
retire at 49 and to hell with everyone else.......
Wow, I had no idea this was all going to come out! I think I just
worked up a sweat.
In any case, be very careful who you buy your parts from, and let them
know if you're dissatisfied with the quality. Ever put new brakes in and
wonder about the quality of THOSE parts????
I'll go back to the garage now, where I belong............
Kevin Thompson
Cape Cod British Car Club
As Don worried, he thought:
Hmmm.....As I stood here looking at my newly arrived TRF clutch cross
shaft, the bells starting ringing.
...Now he remembers the horror stories about the miss drilled TRF clutch
cross shaft....
How can I tell if I have a good clutch cross shaft or a bad one? Is it
enough to compare it with the old one, or is the difference not readily
noticeable. The transmission and cross shaft is at the body shop -- not
out of reach, but not at my finger tips either.
Don Malling
|