Simple Tip to Remove Broken Screws

I had to replace the brakes, wheel cylinders, and axle seals on my 1990 Chevy Silverado 4x4 last weekend.  I've owned the truck for going on 3 years, now. The previous owner (PO) told me it had a slight oil leak on the wheel seals, but it had passed inspection the previous two years so I didn't worry about it... until now. 

I had the brakes checked a month ago and they told me the rear shoes were soaked with oil and brake fluid.  Since I had to get it inspected prior to registering it in April, I knew I had to do something. 

The weather didn't cooperate until the last couple weekends, so, I took an extra day off last week, and plunged in.

Normally brakes aren't that difficult, even with replacing the wheel cylinders.  Axle seals aren't too bad, either, though they're messy because, at least on half ton trucks, you have to pull the cover on the differential and drain the gucky gear oil, then remove a bolt holding the shaft for one of the differential "spider" gears, and pull a couple keepers off the ends of the axles.

When I opened up the case, I could see that someone had been in there before--gobs of RTV sealant hanging off the inside edges of the cover. I also discovered why they hadn't repaired the leaking seals...

The lock bolt is threaded up near the head, but smooth down where it goes into a hole in the gear shaft.

When I took the bolt out, only the top came... oh-ohhhhh!!!

I hoped the lower part was just loose, and tried a magnet to coax it out... no luck.

I then tried to get a drill in the hole to drill a smaller hole in the remainder and get it out with an EZ-out, but no joy there, either. The hole is parallel to the axles and inside the housing so there's no room to get a straight shot with a drill.

I had wrestled with it for an hour when my neighbor walked over and asked what I was doing.  I explained my predicament. He suggested I get one of my wife's large straight pins and try to turn it out with it. He said that when bolts break off they are often loose in the hole, but now there wasn't a head to put a wrench on, etc.  

The straight pin is hardened steel and the sharp point digs in a little... you put it on the edge of the part you're trying to remove and move around the hole in a counter-clockwise direction, kind of like scraping out the corners of a pot with a spoon.

Lo and behold!-- it worked........ almost. The part came out a good 3/4 inch, but wouldn't come the last few threads.  After trying for another hour, I finally found I was able to get to it with a small drill and drill a shallow, off-centered hole in it. I then put the drill bit in backwords and screwed it out of the hole similar to the procedure with the pin...There was still about 1 and 1/2 threads on the smooth part, so it wouldn't just slip out.

Although it took 3 hours to do it, my other alternative was to pull the differential out, get the pin out, then re-setup everything--something way beyond my capability, and expensive if I paid someone to do it.

So, there you have it.  Often a straight pin can be used to remove a broken bolt.

Smitty  

Chriss Street: Congress Wants to Exempt Themselves From ObamaCare

It seems that Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) are in high-level negotiations to exempt all member of Congress from participation in public insurance exchanges mandated by ObamaCare.

You may not know this, but 1,200 corporations and union members have already been granted discretionary compliance waivers by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.

This is hypocrisy of the highest sort... the very people that pushed ObamaCare on the American public, and said we needed to pass the bill to know what's in it (per then House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi), are now trying to escape the "pain" they have inflicted on the rest of us.

Read about it here: 

Congress Exempt from ObamaCare?

The only way to put a stop to this blatant abuse of power and betrayal of our trust is to contact your Senators (contact both of them) and Representative.

Here's a link to contact your House Representative:

Contact Your Congressman

And for the Senate:

Contact Your Senator

Remember,

"The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Smitty 

 

Test Your Knowledge 50's Car Quiz

The 1950s was an interesting time... Eisenhower was in the White House, the US wasn't involved in any foreign wars, Rock N Roll got it's big start, Elvis, Poodle Skirts, Polio Vaccine, and cars whose styling was distinctive--nowadays, unless you see the logo on the car, it's easy to mistake a Toyota for a Chevrolet, etc.

Anyway, the link is for a quiz to test your knowledge of 1950's cars.  Average score is 73%. I got 83%--it seems I know the GM and Ford models very well, but don't do so well on the Chrysler products, including DeSoto, Packard, etc.  Then there are the Frazers, Henry J and Nashes.

Smitty

http://www.americantorque.com/game/car-show-50s/

Old Iron

I love old machinery--doesn't matter what it is--planes, trains, automobiles, or ancient firearms... Having worked in and around machine shops a good part of my life, I can appreciate what it took to make these things with the tools available at the time--no computers, no automated machine tools, not even a calculator.  All the math was done with slide rules and "stubby pencil".

On one of our trips to Southeastern Utah, we stopped in Monticello. The Pioneer Museum there had a display of old farm tractors from the surrounding area.  I was told that most of the tractors came in there on their own power--quite a feat since some of them are close to 80 years old.

Note that this is not a permanent display... they were brought in by private owners and removed again after a couple weeks... I just was at the right place at the right time.

Anyway, here are some of them... I have an account on Pinterest, and will post others there (as soon as I learn how to do so...).

 BTW, if any of you know the exact model of these machines, leave a comment.  I had written down the serial numbers, etc. but have lost my notes...

This old John Deere has seen better days… but then, I would guess it was built in the 30’s so it's close to 80 years old—based on the spoked wheels.  Note also that someone put wheels off a military 2 ½ ton Truck (Deuce and a Half) on the front.  The right tire is even the military universal tread. A close look at the left front wheel in the 2^nd picture will show spokes that were used to attach the new wheel to the old hub…

 

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A Fordson Model B.  When Henry Ford wanted to start building his own tractors, the Ford name was tied up due to an earlier, failed partnership, so, he named them “Fordsons” instead.  I’ve generally seen these with steel wheels… this one has hard rubber tires, with duals in the rear… not sure what it was used for but my guess is as an orchard tractor.

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Here R to L, we have 3 crawlers-- a CAT D4?  An International (IHC) TD-9?  and a John Deere that I don't know the model of. Crawler tractors were used to drag large harrows or gang plows to work dry farms.  Their low ground pressure allowed them to go places a wheeled tractor couldn't. The JD crawlers actually used a modified wheel tractor chassis--mounting track frames on it instead of front and rear axles.

If you look carefully on the engine of the orange IHC crawler, you'll see that it has sparkplugs--even though it's a diesel engine.

The old IHC UD and ND series engines were interesting--though they were diesels, they also had spark plugs, a carburetor, and a magneto. I've seen them in various sizes and 4 and 6 cylinder versions powering everything from generators and motor graders to huge bulldozers. I overhauled a 4 cylinder model out of a Galion Motorgrader while in college back in 1982.

There was a third valve in the cylinder head that just opened to an empty pocket--it didn't go anywhere.  What it did do was lower the compression. by putting more space above the piston. This was one of the first "Hybrid" engines.  It could run on gas, or diesel (if it was warm).

To start the engine, you pulled a lever to open the valve, which also opened a valve to a small gas tank.  When you cranked the engine, gasoline went through the carb into the engine and was ignited by the magneto and plugs.  The lowered compression ration allowed it to run without "knocking".  After the engine warmed up, you shut off the lever while simultaneously pulling the throttle to start diesel flowing to the injectors. Apparently this took a bit of coordination, but it must have worked pretty well because it was used for many years. 

This system was unique to International.  Cat used a "pony engine"--a small, inline 2 cylinder gas engine connected to the diesel with a clutch.  You started the pony engine... which also helped to warm the coolant in the diesel (they shared the same cooling system), then engaged a clutch to turn the diesel over... quite an undertaking but it would start it up... John Deere used a similar system on their larger engines, but it was a "V-2"

Straight electric start eventually replaced these older systems, but even while working at a used machinery dealer from 1997 to 2003, we'd still have machines come in with pony engines, or, in the case of the IHCs, a diesel engine with spark plugs.

So, you can win a bet with someone if they say diesels don't have sparkplugs. 

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A nicely restored Farmall (IHC) Cub. 

This tractor was built from 1947 to 1981 under the McCormick-Deering, Farmall, or International names--one of the longest manufacturing runs for any tractor.  While the little 4 cylinder flathead engine only put out about 10 hp, it had a long stroke, so it had plenty of torque.  This was the original garden tractor--you could plow with it, cut weeds, and mow the lawn.  IHC also built a "Lo-Boy" version which was very popular in landscaping, mowing golf courses, etc.

          1977 International Cub Lo-Boy

The Cub and some other IHC tractors had an unusual feature on them called "Cultivision:.  The engine, transmission and rear axle were all connected together as one unit--no external frame was needed.--as is common with most tractors. However, in the Cultivision series, the center line of the tractor was offset to the left, while the operator's seat was to the right. Notice the steering shaft goes down the right side of the tractor. This allowed the operator to look directly at the furrow or line of crops he was working on.  It made the tractor look a little odd and off-balanced, but it was a good system.

My father-in-law had a IHC Cub with plows and a sickle bar mower.  He had bought 5 acres in rural Davis County, Utah, and used it around the "homestead".  He planted a garden, fruit trees, etc. but the weeds from the former pasture sprang up quite high.  We were living with them at the time while I was in school, so one day I decided to help out by mowing weeds.  Little did I know that I also mowed down several of his young sapling fruit trees--the weeds were so tall I couldn't see them... ooops!!!

 

This shows the front view of the Farmall Cub, along with a Sears SS16 garden tractor in the foreground.  The Sears tractors were built in the 1970s to the early 80s.  They were a development of the older Sears Suburban Series.  The GT series followed the SS models and were the last Sears tractors built by Roper before they changed the name to Craftsman and Sears started buying them from American Yard Products (AYP). The SS and GT series tractors had Onan flat twin cylinders in 16 or 18 hp... quite the brute for a small tractor!! I have both models and work them hard.

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Here we have R to L, a Case VAC?, an Allis Chalmers, and a John Deere.  Do you notice anything unusual about the John Deere?

Here's another picture... Give up???

Oh, alright!!!! One last picture... anyone familiar with the old John Deere "Johnny Popper" flat twin engine will know immediately. 

     

This John Deere has had a Chevrolet Small Block V-8 "grafted" on to it!!

The V-8 is sitting above the area where the two, flat-lying, side-by-side cylinders of the factory engine would normally be. A large flywheel, now replaced by the larger pulley on the lower right side of the picture, was attached directly to the crankshaft.  Whoever installed the Chevy did a great job... even if it's V-belt drive!  Notice that the engine is painted John Deere yellow and green...

 Although a 4-stroke engine, the spark plugs of the John Deere "Johnny Popper" both fired on the same revolution. It had a distinctive sound when running, hence the nickname... the cylinders were quite large, but it was the huge flywheel on the side of it which made the tractor a lugging fool.  Many tractor pulls were won by them in the 40s and early 50s.

As a boy in the 60s, one of our neighbors used a John Deere Model B to drive an irrigation pump.  His farm was a mile down the road, but on a warm summer evening with the windows open, that old tractor "sang" me to sleep many a time.

Here's a picture of another John Deere with the "Johnny Popper" engine. Notice the sparkplug and wire of the right hand cylinder just above the frame rail.  The large pipe is to bring coolant from the engine to the radiator.  The large flat pulley was used to power belt-driven machinery such as pumps, threshers, etc.

If you're interested in old tractors--restoring them, or getting more information, check out these websites:

Tractor Data  A good site for basic information about just about every tractor ever made--agricultural, industrial, and even the small garden/lawnmower tractors. 

Yesterday's Tractor  A good site for parts, manuals, and a great forum as well.

Smokstak  This site deals with antique engines of all types, but also has a well-supported forum on tractors and other machinery...

Garden Tractor Talk  I love this website!!!  It deals with all types of garden tractors, antique and modern--one, two, three, or four-wheeled.  It has .pdf copies of many manuals, and a diverse forum dealing with specific models... For example, have you ever seen a Roof "Palomino".  It's a lawnmower built to look like a Jeep.  How about an old David Bradley or Bolens walk behind tractor, or a Pennsylvania Panzer?  They're all located here.  Want to convert your Garden Tractor to diesel power??? you can find step-by-step instructions here as well... There's also a classifieds section to find those (increasingly) hard to find parts.

You can browse for free, but I encourage you to join as you can then post to the forums, as well as contribute articles, etc.

Well, that's all for now, but I'll post more later when I get a chance.

Smitty

Replacement Windows

Got this from a former co-worker... slightly PI (politically incorrect), but cute nonetheless.
Smitty

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, double-pane, energy-efficient kind.  Today, I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He complained that the work had been completed a year ago and I still hadn't paid for them.  Helloooo,............ just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid. So, I told him just what his fast-talking sales guy told me last year... that these windows would pay for themselves in a year.    Hellooooo? It's been a year, so they're paid for, I told him. There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally hung up. He never called back. I bet he felt like an idiot.

Don't Mess With Old People

This is a cute story.  I've heard it before, but it still brings a chuckle...As the old saying goes, 

"Age and cunning will always trump youth and skill..."    

 

Smitty

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOU'RE OLD, AND DON'T MOVE FAST ANYMORE.

George Phillips, an elderly man from Walled Lake, Michigan, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"
He said "No," but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.
Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available"

George said, "Okay."
He hung up the phone and counted to 30. Then he phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot and killed them both; the dogs are eating them right now," and he hung up.
Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"