Home-made Tools and those you've adapted or modified. And also "tips and tricks".

[Peter Truman]

Ahebron, see attached photo with your suggested mod re holding the bottom of the shock by it's eye bold, rather than on the seat perch. Where do I send the royalties to! Ha.

This method avoids the need to slot the hole in the bottom plate to let the shock adjuster pass through the plate! 

Any comment re strength of the angles, they are industrial shelving support angles, as its a limited use tool should be OK, ie no wear and tear involved. Each bracket bolted to the base plate with 2No. 5/16 UNF tapped bolts, base plate 1/2in thick.

[ahebron]

13 minutes ago, Peter Truman said:

Ahebron, see attached photo with your suggested mod re holding the bottom of the shock by it's eye bold, rather than on the seat perch. Where do I send the royalties to! Ha.

This method avoids the need to slot the hole in the bottom plate to let the shock adjuster pass through the plate! 

Any comment re strength of the angles, they are industrial shelving support angles, as its a limited use tool should be OK, ie no wear and tear involved. Each bracket bolted to the base plate with 2No. 5/16 UNF tapped bolts, base plate 1/2in thick.

Peter you are asking an electrician a mechanical engineering question🙃

As long as the shock is centred and you do the bolt up in the bottom eye so you get no deflection it looks like it should work. If you used it like I do on my one just slipping a bolt through with out winding a nut up then I imagine it could all deflect and get nasty. In these situations I always ignore Colin Chapman. Just remember there is a decent amount of force used when compressing the front springs.

Adrian

[Peter Truman]

Well I'm a Civil Engineer and I'm not worried, at worst it would deform NOT tear the steel bracket. The bracket to base hold down bolts are 5/16in which are over the top, my error as I drilled the holes too big, meant to use 1/4in!

[ahebron]

3 minutes ago, Peter Truman said:

Well I'm a Civil Engineer and I'm not worried, at worst it would deform NOT tear the steel bracket. The bracket to base hold down bolts are 5/16in which are over the top, my error as I drilled the holes too big, meant to use 1/4in!

Looks like you have it covered Peter.👍

[Clive]

1 hour ago, Peter Truman said:

 

I don't like the look of that at all. The last thing you want is either plate to pivot at all. Having had a spring compressor incident I can assure you that there is a tiny timeframe where you get warning it is going wrong, ignore that and is happens so fast you don't know it has happened until after the event. I was very lucky, it could have resulted in serious injury. The spring compressor went straight in the bin.

[JohnD]

1 hour ago, Peter Truman said:

Ahebron, see attached photo with your suggested mod re holding the bottom of the shock by it's eye bold, rather than on the seat perch. Where do I send the royalties to! Ha.

This method avoids the need to slot the hole in the bottom plate to let the shock adjuster pass through the plate! 

Any comment re strength of the angles, they are industrial shelving support angles, as its a limited use tool should be OK, ie no wear and tear involved. Each bracket bolted to the base plate with 2No. 5/16 UNF tapped bolts, base plate 1/2in thick.

Pete,

Those brackets are unbraced, not triangulated, and like a simple hoop roll-over bar, they could, and will, fold sideways (!), not breaking but potentially unbalancing your compressed spring.   I would add gussets, welded on at either end to ensure that is not possible.

And, you have chosen 6mm (?) plate for the ends, but 2mm(?1.5mm??) for the brackets, which will now take much more stress than the end plates they are bolted to.     Is this logical, Captain?  I would use a much thicker guage of steel for the brackets, AND gusset them!

John

[68vitesse]

Made sometime back, not as pretty but works just as well.

Regards

Paul.

 

[dougbgt6]

Paul,

That looks like the prototype of the Club Shop one! Are you on a percentage? 

Doug

[Pete Lewis]

some interesting DIY tooling all far safer than anyone trying external coil clamps which wont work 

and £££s  cheaper than purchased clamps 

and any limitations of HSE can be taken into account when using means they are fine , its not a job you have to do very often ,probably once or twice in the  car ownership years 

Pete

[Peter Truman]

The bottom 13mm plate has a 45mm hole that the shock tube can pass thro and the shock spring pedestal sits on it same as the clubs set up,  I’ve used that set up 4 times on std tube shocks with pedestal spring support.

The issue was the GAZ shocks I have for the Vitesse which have a 5/8in knob to adjust the shock rate that wouldn’t pass thro the hole and I was trying to avoid having to notch with a cut out piece in the bottom plate  so the knob could pass thro.

so the basic set up I had is as per 68Vitesse set up.

if I use the bottom shock eye bolt and tube to avoid notching the plate I can see the twisting risk but the threaded 10mm bars are locked to the bottom plate being threaded into the bottom plate as well as lock nuts top and bottom of the plate this would resist the bottom rotating or twisting I suppose I could use a stronger 50mm square box tube around 4mm wall thickness and weld that to a second plate and bolt that to the green bottom plate. 

Probably easier to use a jig saw to cut a notch in the bottom 13mm plate for the adjuster knob and anchor the plate on the shocker spring pedestal as the original setup that way there will be no potential for the set up is shorter and resists twisting

[DVD3500]

4 hours ago, Peter Truman said:

Civil Engineer

Ah... so one that always says "please" and "thank you"...

 

[Peter Truman]

yep that's the way me mum drug me up!

I pulled the 20mm dia regulator knob off the Gaz Shocker and the shaft it's pinned to is only 10mm long and 6mm dia think I can accommodate that easily with a small slot cut out the side of the 45mm dia hole through the bottom plate. I'll stick with the original design no winged side plates.

Gents thanks for the words of warning.

[wimpus]

I've used this again last week.

My uncle made it for me years ago.

 

I've also made an extra plate with smaller hole for..  starter motor spring/bendix change .

Very easy to get that clip off then ! 🙃

[ahebron]

Today I made part of a tool.

I have an AVO 8Mk3 multimeter that I use when I need to see a needle move rather than a row of numbers flash up and down.
It has been a while since I last used it so today I checked the batteries and the 15 volt was dead. Had a look on the internet and they are available but expensive so like last time I decided to build one.
I had 10 2016 1.5 volt lithium batteries but only needed 5. These are a bit skinny so needed to pack it out, to do this on my bench in front of me was the perfect spring and another hunt I found the perfect flat washer. Stack 5 batteries the spring and flat washer into a short length of heatshrink, keep them all sitting together snugly and shrink the heat shrink.

End result one perfect size battery till I need to replace it in a few years time.

Sorry no pics as I put it in the meter before I thought of sharing.

 

Adrian

[Peter Truman]

Yep I too prefer an analogue meter, only trouble is it keeps breaking the probe wires, 

[GrahamB]

I repaired a LED inspection lamp by constructing a battery from two, three rechargeable cell packs designed for analogue telephones.  Re-soldered the connections and bound them with PVC tape, half the cost of buying a new lamp.

I previously to use an AVO meter (AmpsVoltsOhms) that my father "gifted" himself when he left the RAF in 1948.  I now use a digital meter but set to the highest range so that it reads a stable 012 volts rather than 12.34 volts which keeps changing.  The last two decimal point may be useful in some electronic engineering context but not when checking whether power is getting to a switch.

[Bfg]

[68vitesse]

Made this earlier this year from scraps to hold a component from the Vitesse while refurbishing it.

Regards

Paul.

 

[Patrick Taylor]

On 12/04/2020 at 10:36, Colin Lindsay said:

Do you remember the old projectors with the plate on the underside; it dropped down, you put a photo on it and then raised it again and it projected the image, usually upside down? 

An epidiascope: Opaque projector - Wikipedia. Great word! 

[JohnD]

6 hours ago, 68vitesse said:

Made this earlier this year from scraps to hold a component from the Vitesse while refurbishing it.

Regards

Paul.

 

Might be more useful if you explianed what it was you needed steadying.

John

[68vitesse]

On 15/10/2021 at 18:19, JohnD said:

Might be more useful if you explianed what it was you needed steadying.

John

Steering wheel, while l stitched a new leather cover on it.

Regards

Paul.

[JohnD]

A picture saves a thousand words, Little Grasshopper.    But only if the picture includes the whole subject!

But don't take the steering wheel off to show how you did it!

 

Me, I'd have bolted the wheel to a spare column, and held that in the vice!

JOhn

[68vitesse]

1 hour ago, JohnD said:

Me, I'd have bolted the wheel to a spare column, and held that in the vice!

Being a southern softy I preferred the warmth of the house to the cold of the garage.

Regards

Paul

[Colin Lindsay]

On 15/10/2021 at 12:01, 68vitesse said:

Made this earlier this year from scraps to hold a component from the Vitesse while refurbishing it.

Regards

Paul.

 

I thought that was cheese... squashes the mouse and makes a mouse-shaped mould at the same time...

Anyway: one to file away under tips:

I was trying to rebuild a Spitfire bellhousing earlier and those ******* rollpins are stuck fast. So: decided to go online and check for availability. 

Canleys are charging over £7 for two... so I entered their part number of DS916 and was taken to an MG Supplier:

https://www.ukmgparts.com/catalogue/mid-midcat-3-submid4-clutch-propshaft-components-1275-1500

They're 48p on that site, 96p a pair.

If Canleys are stating that parts like the small side plugs are NLA whilst the MG site has them for £3, Rimmers are £11, it seems to make sense to buy them from the supplier who is using the same part numbers as Triumph - don't forget they shared the same 1500 engine - as they must have fewer 'overheads'.

It seems to pay to shop around... I'm all for supporting 'our' suppliers (if only the wife knew how much support they get from me...) but these days with prices rising it makes sense to save where possible.

 

[Badwolf]

Back to the same old discussion about cost and quality. Pity that so many 'same:parts' were used in different models. An equivalents list of parts would be useful ...but huge. I remember once having an equivalents list of silver oxide button batteries. Every sup?ier had a different reference number for the same sized battery. It ran to three pages of an Excel spreadsheet.