Workshop fence gate

I built a gate into my fence so I could maneuver the the van into the basketball court side of our back yard. This should allow me to work on the van directly from the workshop instead of going through the house for everything.

I framed up a section of the fence first by adding vertical supports and a truss from scrap hardwood I scrounged up from several places, then added the hinges and locking bolts before cutting the gate itself out from the fence. Palings were knocked out and replaced during various stages in order to fit heavy hinges and fasteners etc. Too easy.

Below are some unsorted photos that probably need further description however I'm feeling lazy at the moment. The end result was a gate that's relatively stealthy, and works and looks exactly as hoped.

Somehow I managed to get zero pictures of the gate in action...as exciting as that might sound...

Curious bearings

I think I found the actual, definitive source of my gearbox noise. The input shaft here is locked in place and does not spin against the main shaft when in 4th gear. Here are the bearings where it rotates when in any gear other than 4th...where is the bearing cage??

Here are eleven roller bearings around the drive shaft. The input shaft is in my left hand which sits over these roller bearings.

There is a hard plastic residue sprayed all over the underside of the input shaft. Was this a plastic bearing cage?? Did the transmission massively overheat at some point?

Part 43: "Pilot Bearing"
Part 42: "Input shaft"

The image shows a bearing assembly with cage.

edit: I got a metal cage (h suffix) replacement for ~$12 from Bearing Wholesalers. Ford were charging $95 for the plastic cage TN version. :(

45th Birthday...so old

I had a chocolates pig-out at work, then continued the trend with a belly-busting KFC lunch...so full...

Then shot down to the chinese tool warehouse near work and grabbed some bits with Jana's $$ present. This year it was a few different medium/small gear pullers. Though I don't actually need these NOW, I did need these style when I was disassembling the van gearbox during the last fortnight.

Mum baked some chocolate cupcakes that I'll secretly scoff down when nobody is looking later this evening.

Pixie helped with the birthday cheer.

Storm Trooper Bowl

Finally finished the Storm Trooper Bowl.

I decided to varnish this one instead of oiling, however I had some very old ordinary varnish and the 3rd and 4th coats went horribly wrong. The solvent for whatever reason wrecked the previous layers and I ended up with a gummy mess that wouldn't cure.

So I spent two afternoons trying to get varnish off of an intricate bowl...this was a horrible horrible horrible job. The end result isn't as nice as I'd like...I got sick of re-working what I'd already done. :( There are tool marks all over it, however I'm done with sanding!

So back to oil.

The others are a couple years old now, so got a re-coating also.

53mm uber deep well socket DIY

Further to the previous gearbox post, I now need to remove the input shaft sleeve. However this is a monster 53mm socket which needs to be ~250mm deep. Unheard of. A special Ford Workshop Tool "LDV 125" is needed. However I don't have the connections or money to play games with proprietary stuff that flies in the face of "right to repair". (Many, but not all tools cannot be obtained without becoming a certified repairer/distributor etc)

...so off to the workshop I go to make my own...again...

I don't have an LDV 125 tool, and neither does anyone else on planet Gizmologist.

While there are a variety of tools which could grip this piece, the bell-housing prevents clearance for most of these. (chain-grip vice grips etc...)

Couldn't find my dividers, so I cut the end off of an old plastic vernier caliper to get the required measurement. Naturally the dividers were located later...

R.I.P cheap tool.

A 52.5 mm Hex (12 side) plan was drawn with sketchup, and cut out on paper to test the fitting.

It's actually only a 46mm socket, but the geometry of a hexagon can be defined by its radius/diameter, which in this case was 52.5mm.

It was a wee-tad snug, so I switched to 53mm instead.

I hogged out most of the material from my DIY socket with a holesaw. Aluminium is pretty easy to work with, though I did have a piece of steel on hand ready to make this part if required.

I'm going to use a piece of scrap 80x80mm profile from work to use as the "depth" of this monster socket.

I hogged out as much as I could of the teeth from the socket with a 4-flute-end-mill...in the mill.

And then it's time to finish the job with needle files. This part actually took me TWO FULL HOURS to complete...infinite test fittings and tiny tweaks required for so many contacting edges. It would have been much easier had it been a goofy french curve .

Eventually I got a primo' fit.

The 80x80mm profile I'm going to use doesn't actually fit over this final collar diameter, so I'm going to have to make some spacers and adapters to get this all to work.

Three plates go to together like "this" to transition from the profile to my socket head.

...there's still some work remaining to get them all bolted together...

One plate.

Two plates.

Three plates.

Add a breaker bar made with some more scrap profile.

Viola. Work complete. Cya round LDV 125...