On Sun, 10 Nov 2002, at around 11:41:00 local time, Dave Connitt
<dconnitt@fuse.net> wrote:
>Hi List,
>I have a brazing question. The PO of my TR4A had brazed the upper front
>driver side body attachment to the frame! I am planning on removing the body
>to restore the chassis and am considering techniques of removing the brazed
>connection with the lease amount of trauma to the rest of the attachment
>point. I can take a picture if anyone needs to see.
I really don't envy you this one.
Off the top of my head:
Blowtorch (but only if you are not concerned about your paintwork)
Brass melts at a considerably lower temperature than any steel, so if
you get the temperature right (around 1000C), the brazing metal will
simply run away leaving nothing but pristine steel behind.
Hacksaw (but only if you are not concerned about a long and boring job)
Brass/brazing metal is soft and easy to saw, but tends to stick in the
teeth of the hacksaw, which therefore needs cleaning off fairly
frequently. If there is no room for an ordinary hacksaw, try a Junior
Hacksaw, if there is no room for that, most ironmongers and tool
suppliers can supply a cheap and nasty plastic handle into which one end
of a hacksaw blade can be fitted. Of course, you then have to remove
brazing metal from both parts - angle grinder, followed by file,
followed by wet-and-dry, I suppose...
Grinding
If there is room to get an angle-grinder in there, that would do nicely.
Thermal Shock (but only if you are of an experimental frame of mind)
Trying to "think outside the box": you could try heating and freezing
the joint again and again until it gives up. May take a lot of effort
and achieve nothing, though, and may do horrible things to the steel.
Have you access to liquid Nitrogen?
Brazed steel joints are surprisingly strong, and any attempt to apply
leverage to break them apart is doomed to failure - you'll bend the
steel long before you do anything useful to the brazing metal or to the
joint.
No doubt there'll be someone along in a minute who has faced this
problem before, and found a simple and easy solution, but I thought I'd
throw in my two penn'orth.
Best of luck.
ATB
--
Mike
Ellie - 1963 White Herald 1200 Convertible GA125624 CV
Connie - 1968 Conifer Herald 1200 Saloon GA237511 DL
Carly - 1977 Inca Yellow Spitfire 1500 FM105671
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|