This Week in Wheeler's Workshop

[Nick W]

For the first time in ages, I've managed to get up and do something every day this week. Hopefully it will be good practice for when I get around to finding some full time employment.


Monday, I made these:





They're adapters for jacking the tail of a small aircraft, and apparently they're normally a lot more expensive than the £25 I charged


Tuesday I collected a friend's Grand Vitara, fitted new shocks and wipers and put it in for an MOT.

[Nick W]

Wednesday's job was to make this look better:





That's off an MGF, and the 'aluminium' trim had worn through. Think Irmscher wheels for an Omega.


A couple of minutes with some scotchbrite had it ready to mask:





Then I designed and fabricated a high-tech Custom Clamping Fixture**:





Yes, I know I'm not very good at masking!





A couple of coats of Z147 Star Silver, and some 2-pack clear:





It wouldn't match a piece of trim that it touches, but it is bloody close! Plus, it's going to be much more hard wearing. And I already had the paint. One of those it ought to work jobs.


** The CCF only looks like a scrap bit of 2x2 softwood, with a 14mm hole drilled through and then cut in half to clamp a 15mm rod in my bike workstand.

[Nick W]

Thursday's job was to find out why the resin adjusters in Andrews headlamps weren't working.


So, I stuck them in the oven, and replaced the adjusters with some scrounged aluminium ones which we know work.


The resin ones showed a couple of problems:


The inserted pin and ball can be pushed out if you wind the adjuster too far; and it's easy to strip the tapped thread. So, if you use these, you need to ensure that they are set close to where they need to be before you reassemble the lamp. When you adjust the beam setting on the car be gentle. Then they are likely to be a decent solution to knackered adjusters.

[Nick W]

Friday, I assembled two sets of these:





Like this:





(which is the real use of cordless impacts for DIY use)


into these:





And to complete the prep for a front suspension rebuild, this morning I fitted a set of polybushes







One tip from this which saves needing extra hands for assembly:





a couple of spots of superglue to hold the rubber isolater in place!

[amba]

Headlight beams now fully corrected ,Nick and for the first time in ages headlights both light the road in front of car,not the trees on the n/side and just about the front of the bumper on the o/side.
Top job and thanks

[Nick W]

Remember the jacking adapters?


Turns out they work so well(compared to the stack of washers and pins that were being used), that they want some more pads for the actual jacks. Which I will cut from the bar at the front:





Note the use of engineering grade duct-tape to create a precision fit on the part on the left!


This will be a job for Monday, as I'm ringing twice tomorrow with a visit to the Kent Classic Car Show at Aylesford in between. The plan is to have some beers and a curry if we get the quarter peal of Steadman triples in the afternoon. Or if we don't


I plan on charging £30 each for these bits, which will provide some negotiating room if necessary.

[Weds]

This will be a job for Monday, as I'm ringing twice tomorrow with a visit to the Kent Classic Car Show at Aylesford in between. The plan is to have some beers and a curry if we get the quarter peal of Steadman triples in the afternoon. Or if we don't

I'll be at Aylesford with my Porsche 928, stop and say hello if you see me...

[YZ250]

You seem a handy guy on the machines Nick.  Are you toolmaker trained or self taught, not particularly relevant but just curious. 
Very handy to have the gear to be able to knock stuff up, it's what I miss most about not being on the machines any more. 

[Nick W]

This will be a job for Monday, as I'm ringing twice tomorrow with a visit to the Kent Classic Car Show at Aylesford in between. The plan is to have some beers and a curry if we get the quarter peal of Steadman triples in the afternoon. Or if we don't

I'll be at Aylesford with my Porsche 928, stop and say hello if you see me...

Deal

[Nick W]

You seem a handy guy on the machines Nick.  Are you toolmaker trained or self taught, not particularly relevant but just curious. 
Very handy to have the gear to be able to knock stuff up, it's what I miss most about not being on the machines any more. 

Self taught - I bought and learnt how to use a small lathe because I was fed up with pestering mates for odd jobs. I wish I'd done it while my grandad was alive, as he was a professional machinist. The first thing I made were a custom pair of axle to leaf spring locating pegs: £400 for a £1 part if they had been available Then a small mill for similar reasons. TIG welder, and other stuff, you know how it goes.


Able to knock stuff up is the perfect phrase. I'll happily do mechanical jobs, metalwork, bodywork, simple trimming(I must get my aunt to show me how to use my industrial sewing machine ) because they're all building on basic skills that I started learning as a kid. Unless it's woodwork, where looks like it was nailed together by a pissed amputee but probably won't fall apart is more accurate. I draw the line at electronics and programming: they just give me a headache!

[YZ250]

You seem a handy guy on the machines Nick.  Are you toolmaker trained or self taught, not particularly relevant but just curious. 
Very handy to have the gear to be able to knock stuff up, it's what I miss most about not being on the machines any more. 

Self taught - I bought and learnt how to use a small lathe because I was fed up with pestering mates for odd jobs. I wish I'd done it while my grandad was alive, as he was a professional machinist. The first thing I made were a custom pair of axle to leaf spring locating pegs: £400 for a £1 part if they had been available Then a small mill for similar reasons. TIG welder, and other stuff, you know how it goes.


Able to knock stuff up is the perfect phrase. I'll happily do mechanical jobs, metalwork, bodywork, simple trimming(I must get my aunt to show me how to use my industrial sewing machine ) because they're all building on basic skills that I started learning as a kid. Unless it's woodwork, where looks like it was nailed together by a pissed amputee but probably won't fall apart is more accurate. I draw the line at electronics and programming: they just give me a headache!

Nice one.    You can never have too much equipment, it enables you to make a specialist tool from scratch as you know.    I was lucky that the amount of hub pullers, slide hammers, bearing tools and many other creations that I made were all courtesy of the MOD.   

I was also lucky that I had an apprentice master who was interested in cars. He used to create cars that shouldn't have been, like a MK11 Cortina with Jag engine and running gear,  Land Rovers with Jap engines etc. This was late seventies/early eighties and he was a damn good engineer. He would roll his own arches, weld bits in to make bits fit etc. I learned a lot from him and when he saw me pondering over a car problem he would say "get on with it, it's only a load of metal bits held together with a load of bolts".    If only life was that simple. 

[Mr Gav]

You seem a handy guy on the machines Nick.  Are you toolmaker trained or self taught, not particularly relevant but just curious. 
Very handy to have the gear to be able to knock stuff up, it's what I miss most about not being on the machines any more. 

Self taught - I bought and learnt how to use a small lathe because I was fed up with pestering mates for odd jobs. I wish I'd done it while my grandad was alive, as he was a professional machinist. The first thing I made were a custom pair of axle to leaf spring locating pegs: £400 for a £1 part if they had been available Then a small mill for similar reasons. TIG welder, and other stuff, you know how it goes.


Able to knock stuff up is the perfect phrase. I'll happily do mechanical jobs, metalwork, bodywork, simple trimming(I must get my aunt to show me how to use my industrial sewing machine ) because they're all building on basic skills that I started learning as a kid. Unless it's woodwork, where looks like it was nailed together by a pissed amputee but probably won't fall apart is more accurate. I draw the line at electronics and programming: they just give me a headache!

Hats off to you Nick, I totally admire people that are self taught and are very good at what they do. Proper garden shed engineering in the true British way 

BTW....hope you charged a small fortune for using the ultra rare Z147 paint 

[Kevin Wood]

For the first time in ages, I've managed to get up and do something every day this week. Hopefully it will be good practice for when I get around to finding some full time employment.


Monday, I made these:





They're adapters for jacking the tail of a small aircraft, and apparently they're normally a lot more expensive than the £25 I charged

You could always add a couple of zeros to the price and sell them to audiophiles for supporting their equipment. Might need to make up some bull5h1t science for the advert, but...

[Nick W]

We've got to remove a propeller for servicing.


Which lead to being asked to make one of these:





"but with a smaller hex"


So I had a dig about in my stock, and produced this lot:





Left to right: mandrel for the 47.5mm AF Hex, Hex machined from 15mm plate and some 2" tube





That's machining the hex using the mandrel held in an ER32 collet block


And then some welding:





I'll find out if it works tomorrow.

[STEMO]

Locking at that piece of work and guessing how it's going to be used, I think your weld may get stress tested.