In the shed this weekend.

[Lebro]

Good stuff, must have a chat about it sometime.

Bob

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

15 hours ago, Lebro said:

Good stuff, must have a chat about it sometime.

Bob

Is for a mill or a Boxford lathe?   

[Ralph Whitaker]

I have them on both my Bridgeport and the Harrison.  Couldn`t do without them now.  makes it easy to find centres, or drill any number of holes on a pcd, all sorts of useful stuff. On the Harrison lathe I fitted it for the same reason, that it was a metric lathe and I was working on imperial plans at the time for my steam engine.

Ralph

[Lebro]

7 hours ago, BlueTR3A-5EKT said:

Is for a mill or a Boxford lathe?   

Probably neither, just interested!

Bob

[Dic Doretti]

Early TRs have a problem as you cannot remove the front suspension top fulcrum pin without a complete suspension strip down, on the later cars (4A onward?) all 4 bolts are captivated so the pin is simply unbolted. To solve this problem I joined the 2 inner nuts with a thin strip of steel so they cannot turn and the strip is held in place by the top spring collar and it works!

Cheers 

Richard

[RogerH]

Went for a drive on Thursday in the TR4 'BlueRacer' for the Friday MOT. All went very well except that the gear change was very stiff.

It has only done apprx 200 miles since its GB rebuild about 10 years ago.  It has a very small/tatty gear knob

On Saturday/Sunday I removed the GB top cover to check the selector rod loading. 1/2 apprx 25lbs  3/4 apprx 25lbs  Rev apprx 40lbs

In reducing the Rev load  I had a disaster - DO NOT put your finger between the casing and the Rev gear fork/lever.  When it breaks through the detent you squash your finger

Ow Ow Ow  -  ooh it did hurt, swelled up and went purple.

The rev detent loading would not affect  the forward gears.  I'm hoping that the tightness will wear off  with miles on the box.

There is oil in the box.  The gears etc look very good.

Today I put it all back together.

 

Roger 

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

Wedge type Sidescreen pockets for TR2/3    Task is to strip the locking screws out ready for chrome plating.

Punch out lock pin with 3/32” pin punch    Note the pins are splined on one end which is in the back of the pocket, so must be punched out towards the rear and refitted from the rear with the spline going in last.

Threads in the pockets are 1/4” unf.   

 Had to drill out one broken lock screw, will remake in stainless.

 

 

[Lebro]

When I had wedge type fittings (now got the Dzus route - less painfull on the elbow) I made some new screws, but with a much larger diameter knurled head.

made it easier to tighten up & loosen off.

Bob

[Charlie D]

 

Excellent write up Peter !

 

I was going to do something similar, but using Allen headed screws as a basis (The ones with the knurling around the head.)

In the end I remade my sidescreens with a “soft flap” at the bottom, as opposed to the normal type that has the wire part of the screen frame in it.

I fitted LTD clips on the flap to tie up with the toneau studs on the door. All I have to do is slot the Sidescreen frames into the sockets and clip the flap onto the studs.

This stops the Sidescreen from moving upwards and negates the need for the locking screws.

It also makes the side screens take up less room and easier to store.

(I made them 2 years ago and have never used them yet…)

 

Charlie.

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

…and stainless locking screws   Not the best knurling, stainless being prone to work harden as you run the knurls over the metal.

Final lathe ops will be to turn the pip off and chamfer as required.   Then a quick buff on the big polishing mop.

 

[Lebro]

What fun !

Bob

[RogerH]

Hi Pete,

when doing your straight knurdles - is the lathe running or do you turn  the chuck by hand (360' and then back again)?

Roger

 

 

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

1 hour ago, RogerH said:

Hi Pete,

when doing your straight knurdles - is the lathe running or do you turn  the chuck by hand (360' and then back again)?

Roger

 

 

Run slow with the back gear and flood with suds. 

The cheap knurles (£8.00) do not give as crisp a finish as the expensive ones (£30.00)

Flooding with suds clears all the swarf away and keeps the finish clean 

[RogerH]

My gear changing is a pain (bloody chinese)  so when doing a diamond knurdle I rotate it by hand just one full rev and then  back again.

I apply max+ pressure on the tool going forwards and then re-tighten on return.

 

Roger

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

3 hours ago, RogerH said:

My gear changing is a pain (bloody chinese)  so when doing a diamond knurdle I rotate it by hand just one full rev and then  back again.

I apply max+ pressure on the tool going forwards and then re-tighten on return.

 

Roger

That makes good sense.   I will try that method.

Which knurling tool do you have?    I made mine from a Hemingway basic kit.

https://www.hemingwaykits.com/knurling-tools

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by BlueTR3A-5EKT

[RogerH]

Mine looks like your basic tool but has an extra lever on top to add more pressure the the wheels.

 

Roger

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

The batteries in my wife’s Maglite have decided to go  flat and corrode inside the torch body.   No you cannot just poke them out from the lamp end as the plastic bulb holder is in the way.

Soaked with white vinegar for a day, poked a hole in the end of the battery with a spike and screwed a big wood screw into the end of the battery.   Gripped the screw head in the vice and tightened the torch body against a nylon washer sat on the vice jaws so the turning motion of the torch body worked as an extractor.    
Cleaned all the excess white corrosion off with a rat tail file.   Smeared the inside of the torch with Vaseline, reassembled and hey presto it all works now.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by BlueTR3A-5EKT

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

On 9/1/2023 at 8:06 PM, RogerH said:

My gear changing is a pain (bloody chinese)  so when doing a diamond knurdle I rotate it by hand just one full rev and then  back again.

I apply max+ pressure on the tool going forwards and then re-tighten on return.

 

Roger

Can you drop the voltage to the lathe motor with one of these to slow it down?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195736083461?hash=item2d92c79c05:g:kHoAAOSwZQJkTJRZ&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8P%2FmNhQpRZbGa%2B0QwrPvxUR50U1t52v1PiTtfAYcBG8pDRg5DpkhoMRuegMSUnKN29vNu3rqZ%2FEEO6VMju8NGQvQ4y2Lf78MtgEA%2Ftjst8qpK4omQdG6SbKpwDrPZH923U2oQ%2B3wOPpog3U4KKsWHqgxqMDV%2Bwrwg4VwjpJK%2Fnnw8PqXghF%2B4C7qrL2A8Xi9lChAdPK%2FqYI12AljiexJ8ndzM6rPI8L6nJJobUUAks0ZCzsRysaMcAt%2Fn1QVUblu0q7hZFyhCDHKio5OBu0CfzcTNyBxU3jotMrjiB7%2FgOAu8QaU5zVopivIBvGWmQSy5Q%3D%3D|tkp%3ABFBMionUneNi

 

 

[Lebro]

Sounds like a big light dimmer to me, (PWM).

Anyway the lathe motor will be trying to run in synchronism with the 50 HZ mains, you would need an inverter unit to drop the frequency.

Bob

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

1 hour ago, Lebro said:

Sounds like a big light dimmer to me, (PWM).

Anyway the lathe motor will be trying to run in synchronism with the 50 HZ mains, you would need an inverter unit to drop the frequency.

Bob

Lots of the import machines run with dc motors.   I guess you would need to break into the motor feed to add any resistance.    

[RogerH]

That all looks far to clever for me.

 

Roger

[Charlie D]

19 hours ago, BlueTR3A-5EKT said:

Lots of the import machines run with dc motors.   I guess you would need to break into the motor feed to add any resistance.    

If the motors are DC then PWM would probably work.

PWM (Pulse width modulation) is actually a very simple process.

What happens is that instead of a steady voltage applied to the motor,

the voltage is switched on and off.

For example:

If, in a one second time period, the voltage is on for half a second and then off for half a second, the motor will run slower than it would if the voltage was on for the entire second. If the voltage was only on for a quarter of a second and off for three quarters of a second, the motor would run even slower.

In reality the time periods are much less than a second, in milliseconds or whatever, so you get smooth revolutions of the motor spindle.

If you were just adding a resistor into the circuit you may well slow the motor down, but with PWM you get pulses of the full voltage going in, so the motor can still be powerful, but at a slower speed.

 In the old days of Scalextric the hand controllers consisted of simple variable resistors that just reduced the voltage going to the cars. Later versions had PWM controllers to make the cars much smoother to “Drive”.

(Or have I got it all wrong…)

Charlie.

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

I’ll go and plug my voltage controller ( same as above) into my ac motored Boxford  lathe and see what effect it has.   I use the controller to reduce the heat in our electric wok, that has a simple temp thermostat as standard that is either full blast or possibly off depending on the setting.    Dropping the voltage eases the heat output down very effectively so stuff does not burn when cooking, without the need to mess with the random thermostat as supplied.  

[Charlie D]

 

 

29 minutes ago, BlueTR3A-5EKT said:

I’ll go and plug my voltage controller ( same as above) into my ac motored Boxford  lathe

Peter,

DON'T DO THAT !!!

It should work on a DC motor, but I doubt it would have any effect on an AC one and may end up burning out the controller.

Speak to Bob or Rob first, but I think they would advise you not to do it.

Charlie.

[Charlie D]

I got the last message off as soon as I saw what you had put, hoping to reach you before you did it.

I shall now eleborate a bit more.

I once tried a PWM controller on an AC motor and it did not work properly. The speed of the sort of AC motor you probably have is controlled, as Bob said, by the frequency of the AC.

I did get some speed change with the AC motor but there was no power with it and the motor stalled easily (and got hot.)