Project Cobbler's's Talbot Express - Time to move it on?

[cobblers]

Looks easy* to get to it to sort the issue.

I can't complain too much, at least I'm not on my back or something. 

 

 

I think what's happened there is somebody had a go before, felt the bolt starting to yield and decided to leave it alone.

 

There's no rusty marks on the end of the sheared face which (if AvE on youtube is right) then this probably isn't a historic issue. Maybe I weakened it previously, but I've never really put all that much force on it.

[DodgeRover]

If you try and turn the nut end what happens?

[cobblers]

I haven't tried it after drilling, but beforehand it was 100% stuck dead solid to the point where the double nutted nut was starting to feel "soft" and I gave up.

[Matty]

It's 10.9 higher tensile than standard 8.8. get a cobalt drill bit at 10.2 mm and drill down it as far as you can be arsed and tap to M12. A nuts depth for a fastener will usually give as much strength as the fastener has to give and it's not like it's taking a shit load of stress!

[cobblers]

Every mechanically propelled vehicle is shit and I hate them.

I hate my fucking house for not having a fucking drive and the fact that I've got to drag my tools out of the attic and all the way down the stairs and then 300m up the fucking street to where the van is.

But most of all I hate THIS ONE BOLT IN PARTICULAR!!! AAARGH!!!

 

Four hours I've spent and it's still in there.

 

Basically I've drilled it as deep as I can - all my drill bits are blunt and shit.

I've got the alternator off and I'm trying to pull the remains of the bolt out from one end by winding a nut onto it with a socket as a spacer. 

I keep tightening the nut as tight as I dare, and then wallop the absolute living daylights out of it from the other end through a load of 1/2" extensions so that when I miss, I don't bash into the dizzy or the carb.

 

For every 4 dozen hammer blows, I can wind about another 1/16th of a turn on the nut - The stud is slowly coming out. I was hoping it'd move nice and easy once it started, but nononono. It's moved about 5mm and it's still as tight as ever. Luckily the thread is good and strong - I've knackered 5 M10 nuts and the the thread is still as new.

 

Anyway I've missed while swinging the hammer and smashed my left wrist hard a few times so I've given up for the day as its all bruised and swollen, somewhat ashamed at what a big job I'm making of changing a bloody alternator. I've changed engines quicker than this!

 

A new water pump is only £65, but thats another half a dozen M10 bolts through aly into steel to contend with, not to mention the engine mount would have to come off and I can't find my trolley jack.

 

FFS, what I'd do for a bloody garage to put all my tools in.

 

[Timewaster]

How about another van to keep all your tools in? You could drive it to the Talbot.

 

#nothelpful

[DodgeRover]

Wind the nut back, clean the stud with a wire brush, spray the stud with penetrating oil then tap it back in place, should tap out much easier and faster if you keep working at it like that.

[cobblers]

Not sure I really follow? There's no tapping it back in without mushrooming the end over, it's mega solid. Penetrating oil is running into it now through the holes I drilled in the casting, I keep on dosing it up and you'd think it'd start going, but no real difference.

 

Basically I can tighten the nut to pull it out so that it's under so much tension it rings like a high-C on a piano when tapped (F.T. with two 17mm spanners linked for extra leverage), then I'll go down the other end and do about 30 full swing lump hammer blows on the end of the extensions and it'll move maybe 0.1mm. It is moving though!

 

I just went over to my mums garage and found my old blowtorch from years ago and my stash of nuts and bolts etc, I'll have another go at it tomorrow with some heat.

[DodgeRover]

I meant to work it back and forth to get some lubricant into it, if it's coming out it should go back in?

[Jim Bell]

Good luck man.

[Guest Hooli]

Sounds fun*

[Timewaster]

Asking my mechanic mates advice only ever has one of two responses.

 

1. You ain't hitting it hard enough.

 

2. You wanna get some heat in it. Cherry the fukka. (Which I think means get it very hot.)

 

These words are often, but not always helpful.

[cobblers]

I meant to work it back and forth to get some lubricant into it, if it's coming out it should go back in?

Ah, I see - It's not even a stud, just the smooth end of what was a really long m10 bolt. There's no room to swing a hammer hard enough at the face of it to knock it back in at all. 

[Richard]

Do you have access to an SDS hammer drill? Using one on hammer only will do more than you could manage with a club hammer, and with no effort. Access might be an issue but should be possible with the arrangement you're using now.

[cobblers]

Yeah, I had considered that, I've got a fairly hefty SDS drill. Unfortunately, I'm a fanny and I took the van apart all the way up the hill though so I don't have any mains electric. I've got a 5kw inverter but it's installed neatly in my shed.

[Dave_Q]

Fun* fact - aluminium has a co-efficient of thermal expansion around 23µm/m/°C, steel is about 15.

 

With sufficient fire you should be able to knock it out fairly quickly. 

 

Good luck.

[Guest]

Had this problem a few years back with a Moto Guzzi front lower engine mount bolt. Couldn't heat it because painted alloy engine block. 30cm long steel bolt through a 28 cm engine casting. Took 2 weeks in the end to get the F&*^%r oot, but had read somewhere at the time to make up a potion of ATF and acetone, soak a cloth in it and wrap it round the end so it would leech in. No idea if it helped but that day after 2 weeks of blood sweat and tears, after a good couple of smacks the bolt flew across the workshop like it was brand new.

[brandersnatch]

Had this problem a few years back with a Moto Guzzi front lower engine mount bolt. Couldn't heat it because painted alloy engine block. 30cm long steel bolt through a 28 cm engine casting. Took 2 weeks in the end to get the F&*^%r oot, but had read somewhere at the time to make up a potion of ATF and acetone, soak a cloth in it and wrap it round the end so it would leech in. No idea if it helped but that day after 2 weeks of blood sweat and tears, after a good couple of smacks the bolt flew across the workshop like it was brand new.

Oh they were crying bastards weren’t they? Been there, sworn at that.

 

 

One’s too many, ten’s not enough!

[Guest Hooli]

 

2. You wanna get some heat in it. Cherry the fukka. (Which I think means get it very hot.)

 

 

Aye it means red hot. Only problem there is I think ali melts before it turns red.... I heard something once about rubbing soap on ali, it turns black at about 300c before the ali melts. I've never tried it to know if it's correct though.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Good thread

 

I hate spannering, that stud sounds depressing.

 

Good bit of bodywork though and +1 on the Gravitex,I love that stuff!

[cobblers]

I won't need to rub soap on this with my shitty old blowtorch, there's no danger of getting it all that hot.

But as above aly expands more than steel so any heat will help. A combo of a bit of heat and a lot of hammering and a lot of pulling is bound* to shift it.

[plasticvandan]

Heat.end of.I struggled like this for days on seized suspension bolts etc til a mate suggested a blowtorch,now it's my first tool of choice if plusgas fails.

[cobblers]

Fuck it I've had enough. My blowtorch is like trying to heat a bath of water with a bic lighter, the bolt is flipping tighter if anything.

 

All going well I could have changed the water pump about half a dozen times by now. 

 

 

And I bet once I put a non-grumbly alternator on, I'd immediately start hearing grumbly water pump bearings anyway. 

 

 

There's a somewhat affordable unit to let not too far away, I might see if one of the lads at work fancies going twos on it.

 

[cobblers]

New waterpump arrived today. Obviously a load of the fasterners for the engine mounts snapped off, but I can deal with that:

 

 

On closer inspection, it does seem as though the water pump bearings are fucked too (there's play in the pulley), so it's not all in vain.

 

 

However, the pulley 100% was not coming off. Again, I tried to pull it off with the three threads, I tried heating it up, but had to resort to violence, and obviously I've bust it

 

 

No bother, I'll pop to the local Talbot dealers in the morning and get another.....

 

Anyway, the old pump is off, the new pump is kind of on, just enough to support the weight of the engine so that I don't have to leave it supported by the jack, which would probably get robbed.

 

I've got a lead on a waterpump pulley in Leicester, I might drive down tomorrow and pick it up.

 

 

I knew I jinxed it by booking next week off work to go camping...

 

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

flippin heck that pump looks like its off a sherman tank or summert

[spartacus]

Aww man, on the one hand I'm gutted you're having all this grief Cobblers, but on the other, because it's you, you're sorting all the stuff out properly, which is good to see. I hope the rest of the water pump saga goes more smoothly than it has so far.

I'm sure you know but there's a place down south called Coastal Motorhomes that specialise in new and used spares for these.

[cobblers]

Honestly none of it is really owt mega, it's just made harder by the fact that I've not got the proper tackle at hand, and I'm working at the side of the road. (And I'm not an amazing mechanic really, I get there in the end but I can make bloody hard work of stuff sometimes)

 

At least the alternator pivot bolt was in the water pump - If it was any other bracket, I'd never have been able to buy one. Also I'm pretty lucky that the water pump isn't stuck behind a timing belt or owt.

 

The water pump pulley is pretty easily fitted, and nothing else really depends on it either - I can get everything else sorted including the alternator and just bang the pulley on at the last minute.

[DodgeRover]

Well at least there was play in the pump so it did need doing at some point, had you got it off and found it was a new one it would have been even more annoying.

[cobblers]

Yeah. It was pretty shagged TBH, I think it was the source of the occasional warbling noise and some of the grumbling too.

 

After all that, I spun the old alternator up with a drill and it's fairly quiet so I don't think it was responsible for all the noise, but definitely some of it as it ran a lot quieter without the belt on.

[DodgeRover]

I wonder if the noise could have been the waterpump?