What Would Be the Standard Practice in This Situation? - 1

Your original sleeving idea seemed plausible, it was just the methods of making the sleeve that were problematic.

If you can dispense with the stays in place when disassembled requirement, it shouldn't be too hard, using either a lathe turned sleeve or one made from slit tubing, possible locktited in place to increase the chances of it staying in the bore when dissasembled.

Oh, it occurs to me you said you had a shop press... if you can get a mandrel the desired ID of the sleeve, you could actually shrink 1" OD brass or aluminum tubing of suitable wall thickness to fit the slightly smaller OD. You'd need to make a chamfered hole in something a bit smaller than the intended OD, anneal just the very end of a piece of tubing, and drive it into that with a big mallet to shrink the end. Then anneal the several inches of tube, cut it off, grease the inside of the tube, and put it over the mandrel. Use the press to push this into the bore of the part clamp and partway out the other side. Remove mandrel and cut off and file ends of the tube flush. You may have to slightly radius the top edge of bore to help the tubing find its way in. Chances are this won't result in a perfect fit though - it might or might not be close enough for your purposes.

You have to decide if it's safe for the application.

Make a tube in the lathe that has a interference-fit on the OD with your clamp. Locktite it in. Make the ID of that tube so that it has the same tolerance/swing of the original clamp. Don't use soft aluminium, but something like dural or free machining aluminium. Yes, I would drive that bike!

Nick

Can you get a piece of 0.030" stainless shim and loctite it into place on the clamp?

I highly agree with you.

It is a requirement that it stay in place upon disassembly.

I have the orange, 20 ton shop press from Harbor Freight. If you have been in one of their stores, you may have seen it.

mandrel?? I looked on Google, and found this site,

Does a chamfered hole have a radiused edge, somewhat like a standard golf tee's sides??

Is annealing when you heat something to soften it??

Thanks for your suggestions.

My question is why ? Do the fork tube holes align between the old and new ? If not , you could be introducing wild variables into the handling of whatever motorcycle you are mounting this on . Not to mention that the clamping action may be compromised . Make a tight slip fit sleeve the length of the thickness of the "new" upper tree ... since it is held captive between a pair of nuts .

That may very well turn out to be my best "I would like to do it by myself, if possible" option, as I do not own a lathe. The option of having someone make the bushings/sleeves/inserts/tubes for me is that I am worried if my dial caliper is off compared to the machinist's measuring tools. Mailing the clamp to someone so they could do it would get expensive, as I own a few bikes, but would only be sending one clamp at a time.

Where would I buy the stainless shim?

What model Loc-Tite would you suggest?

Thank you for your suggestion.

Hi. The front end is being replaced, including lower and upper triple clamps and fork tubes. The original steering stem has to be retained due to a bearing size issue. The stem from the replacement upper triple clamp has a larger OD in the upper bearing's mounting area, and no suitable bearing replacement is available. Unfortunately, this is what is causing all the trouble. :-(

Thank you for your suggestion.

If one were to install a tube, would this be a suitable tool to do it?

OK, Control-Enter = send, I need to write that down. :-|

If one were to install a tube, would something this shape be a suitable tool to do it?

_Exactly_ the one I would use. The 638 is made for that purpose and can bridge gaps of 0.1mm without problem. You know that a gap of 0.1mm would be 0.2mm in diameter. But stay with the 0.1mm less in diameter. You also know, that LockTite _needs_ a gap. So LockTiteing _and_ pressing is a no-go.

Oh, and don't press it in. The wall thickness is not enough. The tube will just collapse.

No. Harder machining, more weight :-) and doesn't help. The original clamp is aluminium, stay with it.

You are welcome!

Enjoy, Nick

I read that as meaning you are selling them.

I may sell one, one day, but I have to worry about my own bikes for right now. :-) When I get it done, the other bike people will want to see and peer presseure leans toward a semi-permanent solution. :-)

Thanks.

So how is a sleeve that falls out any different than a washer you have to remember to keep track of?

One of the problems is that you have 30 on a side (clearance of 0.030 inch on the radius) and the bushing you need to have will be a bit thin-walled. I would suggest steel as the material. It would be easier I think if the hole in the new triple clamp were even a tad larger but without a lathe or milling machine that's a non-starter.

Get somebody to make a steel bushing at just .984 OD and .926 ID.

Generous chamfer on the OD on one side. Because of the thin wall it will easily press into the bore, but may close up to .925 once it's in place, giving you a thou of assembly clearance.

The best way to do this right is to have some telescope gages, a micrometer, and a lathe. If you have a lathe right there, you can make some trial pieces or simple plug gages to get the fits right.

If you drive old stuff that you maintain yourself, it helps to have machine shop stuff handy:

The lathe is there to make stuff for the motorcycles....

Jim

I do not want the sleeve to move around within the bore. Whether a tube, or a strip of shim stock, I am hoping Loc-Tite-ing it in place would solve that.

Thank you.

If I had a tube made, do you think having a tool like this made would get it in there properly?

What does chamfer mean, to make it a radiused edge??

The original OEM clamp's hole is .924". I have aftermarket clamp with .923". It is too tight a fit. I never thought something so small could make such a difference!

I think I am going to do like carl mciver said and just get some shim stock and try that. It'll have the dang seam in it, but it is worth a shot. If it doesn't work, then I will just pay someone to make some tubes and one of those bushing drivers.

I try to maintain everything all by myself. That is why I was wanting to "do it all by myself" like the big kids. :-) Thanks to listening to everyone here, I realize that a lathe is indeed the tool needed for the job, but I won't be buying a lathe. It is not cost-effective. My bikes are from the '80's and '90's, so fortunately, some parts show up on eBay from time to time.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

I am going to order some .031" stainless steel shim stock, Loc-Tite prep and Loc-Tite 638 from McMaster-Carr and give that method a try.

Thanks!

A chamfer is a 45 degree angle on the edge.

A driver like that would help, you could make one with a lathe trivially.

The other way to help things start easy is to turn the starting diameter as an easy undersized fit, so it doesn't c*ck as it starts in.

You can try the shim stock approach but with 30 on a side, that's a tad *big* for shimstock. It'll be tough to get it to roll nicely. That level of clearance is sort of non-optimal, thinner and shimming it out would be easy, bigger and a bushing is obviously the way to go.

As far as press-ups like that being tricky, you are correct. It has a lot to do with surface finish.

Because the triple clamp is aluminum, you can do one other trick.

2) put the triple clamp in the oven at about 250F. This expands the hole.

4) allow the clamp to cool. The bushing will not come out.

Jim

Yup. That's why I'd buy thinwall tubing and slit it so it can shrink slightly.

McMaster has 1" OD tubing .031 - .032 wall in 1" OD in both brass and

Personally I would probably experiment with shrinking the brass without slitting it, having done so many times before for musical instrument applications.

Oops, just double checked... that 6" piece of precision ground stainless tube is over $140 !!!