I've just taken the last 2 days off work to put in some serious
wife-free hours in my garage. (How many other people suffer from a
Catch-22 wife? She often says "When will that car be ready", but after
a Sunday spent working on it I get greeted with "You spend all your
spare time with that car")
Anyway, I was planning on Monday to repaint the chassis, after some
minor welding in the from area which all went OK. Yesterday I was
going to strip down the rear drive shafts. If I ever meet the man who
designed those rear trunnions I don't think I could be held
responsible for my actions. Both of them were completely seized solid
(I don't think they had been disturbed from their slumber since 1973).
The first one I decided to drill out the bolt. Using my motley
collection of drill bits that increase with size inverse
proportionally to the sharpness. The job was eventually complete but
was far too much effort, so I decided to carefully hacksaw the second
one so as not to damage the vertical link or the trunnion housing.
Bad idea. I had to saw down a 3mm (sorry 1/8") gap which was filled
by 25 year old nylon bush. What I did not realise when I started to
saw was that the metal sleeve that goes around the problematic bolt
appears to be hardened. Four (yes 4) hacksaw blades (and alot of
sweat) later the job was done. 4.5 hours for 2 trunnions!
To anyone reading this who has been through this experience, do I now
qualify for entry to the Trunnion Club? To anyone contemplating it, I
wish you luck.
Regards
Pat
PS Joe - what about some Trunnion Club pin badges ;) ?
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