Subject: embarrassing detail mania
OK David, I haven't seen any posts responding to your insane challenge!!
It looks like I'm the only one who will fess up!
Father (Healey), I have sinned. Yesterday I spent almost the whole day
looking for the appropriate slotted nuts for my steering arms (which I bought
new from Moss Motors which came with Nyloc nuts in who knows what the hell
thread).
Months ago I found (through the guy who balanced my rear brake drums) castle
nuts which had the "right" threads to fit the Moss steering arms (I think
they're M12 - 1.5 trread). But these are castle nuts and "correctly" they
should be slotted nuts.
In Tacoma we have a great resource called Tacoma Screw Products which stocks
everything hardware because they cater to the Ports, Industry and Contractors
on the West Coast. I went there (twice) yesterday to find a match to the
castle nuts but in the correct slotted nuts and came away both times with nuts
which don't fit.
So, you re-manufacture the castle nuts with your bench grinder by holding
the nuts in a vice-grip plier and remove the "castle".
Then you use your bench grinder again fitted with 2 thin cut-off wheels to
cut the slots in the nuts (alternating the direction of cut because 2 thin
cut-off wheels are the correct width but don't cut too evenly) into the
"correct" slotted nuts. These slots are too rough so you dress them up by
hand with the edge of a small "fine flat bastard" file which happens to be
close to the same thickness as "correct" slots.
Of course the work is still not perfect so you have to file the new face
flat with a "fine flat bastard" file.
Then you have to grind the "turned corners" of the face with a broken piece
of "fine flat bastard" file in your vice. With the nut mounted on a center
punch and mounted in a hand drill you turn the nut against the broken file to
replicate the turned face of a "real" slotted nut.
The work still looks rough so you put your drill motor in the vice and mount
a wire wheel so yo can smooth out all the faces of the "new" nuts.
Then all that is left is to set up your zinc plating kit and give it a nice
"original" zinc finish.
Total elapsed time for 4 nuts = 9 hours +/- 2 or 3 hours. Who's counting?
Let's see, what would that cost at shop time? Say 10 hrs x $60 = $600 or
$150 per nut. Sound fair to you? The nuts I bought at Tacoma Screw Products
(which were wrong) cost $0.90 each.
I believe these are good credentuals for the truly obsessed. This hobby is
priceless!!!
Rich Bittmann
ps If you really want a "nutty" hobby you should look into "miniatures"
and "doll houses". We bought an old doll house at a garage sale and re-habbed
it for our granddaughter. After our grandson saw it he wanted one too so we
built him a "Log Mansion" from a kit made entirely of pine screen moulding
plus plans for how to assemble it. It wasn't big enough so we bought 2 kits
to make it larger. There is no end to how you can kill time before it kills
you.
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