Welded wheel bearing

You folks might get a kick out of this. I had just towed my race car trailer to the track with some friends following behind us with their tow vehicle. When we got to the paddock and started unpacking, JB the guy following us, said he had a problem with noise from the left front wheel of his tow vehicle. He soon had the wheel off and found the problem - the front inner axle bearing was toast, and the inner race had spun on the axle. The bearing fell apart but the race was stuck on the axle. I got him a puller from my tool box and he set to work pulling the race off the axle. He got worrried the puller would bugger the end of the axle....so he grabbed one of the tapered rollers from the broken bearing and stuck it in the hole on the end of the axle, then uses the puller and extracts the bearing race from the axle....great so far. A little crocus cloth and the axle looked good, so he gets new parts from the last still open store for about 100 miles and starts assembling the bearing and hub. Gets everything back on and goes to put in the cotter pin for the axle nut and...oh shit the tapered roller is now stuck flush with the end of the axle and is blocking the cross drilled hole for the cotter pin! No hope of drilling a hardened bearing roller with any drill we had. What to do? I had a brain storm for an idea that I thought might have 5% chance of working. I grabbed a carbon steel crank handle from my ring gap filer, (basicly just a piece of 3/16" diam. CS rod stock) and a set of heavy duty jumper cables. Connected the cables to the axle and the rod stock, and had JB hold the rod against the end of roller. I grabbed the jumper battery and hooked it up for about 5 seconds. By this time a small crowd of onlookers had assembled to watch and bet on the outcome. To my total amazement, it welded the rod to the end of the roller. Even more amazing, it yanked the roller out of the axle with the help of a slide hammer without breaking off! Of course I didn't let on that I was as amazed as they were that this actually worked.....

"oldjag" wrote: (clip) To my total amazement, it welded the rod to the end of the roller. Even more amazing, it yanked the roller out of the axle with the help of a slide hammer without breaking off! (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Gunner, are you paying attention? If you would let up on some of your right-wing politics, maybe your karma would improve also. ;-)

So, how much of your "Luck" did you use up? When I get that lucky, even with something that should work, I sleep with one eye open in anticipation of the eventual "Evening out" factor. But, one of my techs has this phenominal luck and pulls things out of his ass daily...and thinks nothing of it.

One time I was working in Santa Clara at an engineering software company. At the end of a day, I was leaving the parking lot and there was an old goat type staring into the open hood of his Italian sedan. I figured it was yet another software type who are useless around things mechanical, so I stopped to have a look. His car wouldn't start, not even. I looked, and sure enough the distributor body, a light metal casting, was broken all the way around and spinning freely. The guy commutes about 2 hours each way (the Bay Area is horrible for housing) and so I decided to try a last ditch cobble - I took a roll of duct tape out of my trunk, put the distributor where it was supposed to be - you could tell because the casting fitted together perfectly at that point

- and taped it securely with duct tape. It started OK, so I told the guy to stop on his way home and order the part and I'd help him put it in. A few days after that I got sent out of the country for a couple of weeks and I forgot all about it. A few years later, I was at another company back home in Washington State, and I posted to a newsgroup relating to that Santa Clara company's products, and the old guy noticed it and replied to my posting (this was before the huge spam wave which forced me to disguise my reply-to address) and so we exchanged emails. It turns out that about ten years later he was STILL driving that car with his distributor duct taped. OH MY GAWD.

True story!

Grant

oldjag wrote:

You get the McGyver of the week award for that one, Emil

Okie Engineering..its an art.

Well done Sir!

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Huh? Of course Im paying attention. I read EVERY post (least those who are not kill filed)

Did I mention the time I fixed a throttle linkage on a Ford Courier with a 3030 cartridge case? Id still be stick on the side of the road if the Lefties had had their way......

Chuckle

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Well, I use brass cartridges too, I flatten 'em and run them along the teeth in my files, they very quickly cut teeth and then they're perfect file cleaners. But ever since a good friend of mine got killed 2 feet in front of me (I had to clean his brains off my tennis shoes) I'm not much on guns.

GWE

I must say that sure get tired of pulling those rabbits out of my ass for everybody all the time and oh boy when look out when it comes back around. :-)

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

This kind of "luck" reminds of a Lee Trevino (pro golfer) story. Someone mentioned to him how lucky he (Lee) had been on a particular shot. His reply was: "Yeah, I've noticed that the more I practice, the luckier I get".

After a while, it isn't luck, it's skill/experience.

Bob

Ever since a good friend of mine blew the heart out of the guy trying to gut us both with a knife..Ive been a big fan of guns. That was about 35 yrs ago.

You think a gun shot to the head is bad? Have your buddy standing between you and an 81mm mortor round. I was cleaning him out of my nose, my teeth, and my underwear for a week.

Shrug..old boy fell off a ladder during a disagreement with his wife not far from here a year or two ago. Apparently she jiggeled the ladder, though it couldnt be proven. Landed right on the top of his brand new steel fence post, head first. Hell of a mess..even the coroner puked trying to get him unstuck.

I still climb ladders. I just make sure Ive not pissed anybody off before I go up.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Yeah; the "evening out" fator has come around a few times....

Ah, my friend probably heard the bearing for a while before he reached the track, but I also know he was very determined to reach the track as this was one of his first races with his new racecar. He's lucky he didn't lose axle. I think the main thing keeping wheel on was the brake caliper.