Front Brake Shaft Blues help please

[mrraford]

I'm rebuilding a set of Front Brake Shafts for the yellow car. I've taken the old ones apart by removing the levers so the shafts can be rebushed. After cleaning everything up the next task is to remove the old bushings to make way for the new.
Removal of these bushings are proving to be a challenge. Am I missing out on a technique/tool/trick of the trade that can make this task safer, simpler and less damaging? Please share your experience and tricks. thanks

Mark

[wrndln]

If you don't have a bushing removal tool, which most people don't, the normal way is to take a hacksaw blade and carefully cut through the brass bushing. Brass isn't real hard, so it is a job, but not a terrible job. I have done several that way. Just don't cut into the steel much, if at all. Then you take a pointed punch and "curl" the bushing out. A fellow in our model A club has a neat pronged bushing removal tool that works great and very fast. You slide it into the bushing hole and the 3 or 4 prongs pop out behind the bushing and pull the bushing out.
Rusty Nelson

[31Tudor]

I think on those you can just press in new ones and not even worry about taking the old ones out. Unless you have the old bushing pretty well burred up. There is plenty of room in the housing to allow the old bushing to slide inward while you put new ones in.

[Wick]

just take a tap and put threads inside the bushing. leave tap in bushing.
Got to the other side and put something in the tube and hit it a few times.
Drives the bushing out every time and no damage to tap.

[wrndln]

I forgot about what Wick described. I have done it that way once and it works great and is fast.
Rusty Nelson

[Vic in E-TN]

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I get bushings out easily by taking a 16 penny nail and grinding the point flat on one side with a little curve. When you hammer the nail into the side of the bushing it will usually collapse one part of the bushing. You will usually need to do the same on the other side of the bushing. The nail can be saved or thrown away because you will never find it when you need it again.
Vic

[mrraford]

Thanks for the advice. Last night I tried the old "cut a groove in the brass" approach. I took a small diameter square file and cut a groove in the bushings and then tapped on the end until I got movement and then the bushing would usually collapse and the whole thing would come out. I did 8 castings and about 2/3 of them came out relatively easily with no damage to the casting. A couple looked like someone had loctite'd the bushings and they were more difficult to get out.
I got a brake spring hook at harbor freight yesterday and that proved helpful in getting behind the bushing after it started to move.

[wrndln]

I have found that if someone dodo used Loctite on a metal part (like someone did on a pinion nut on the driveshaft I have - the red stuff) using a propane torch to heat it up will powder the Loctite and allow the part to be freed up.
Rusty Nelson

[H. L. Chauvin]

Hi mraford,

FWIW, humble suggestion:

Just in case interested, over 18 years ago I bought a bushing driver set from Harbor Freight that fits every Model A bushing -- they are still under $20.00.

If your fooling-around-time is limited; and/or if you prefer to install "non-buggered-up" new bushings only "once", & "every" time, one can skip (2) $10.00 desserts at a local restaurant or grocery, lose a pound or two, and try to speed up getting with the program.

Hope this helps to speed up anyone's Model A rebuild agenda.

[Afordman31]

Originally Posted by H. L. Chauvin

Hi mraford,

FWIW, humble suggestion:

Just in case interested, over 18 years ago I bought a bushing driver set from Harbor Freight that fits every Model A bushing -- they are still under $20.00.

If your fooling-around-time is limited; and/or if you prefer to install "non-buggered-up" new bushings only "once", & "every" time, one can skip (2) $10.00 desserts at a local restaurant or grocery, lose a pound or two, and try to speed up getting with the program.

Hope this helps to speed up anyone's Model A rebuild agenda.

I believe this is what H.L. Chauvin is referring to. Afordman31

[mrraford]

kk I have a set of bushing drivers similar to the one HL & A.. refer to. However, how would you use this for front brake shafts? I haven't found a way to get behind the old bushings with these tools to drive them out. Am I missing an angle here?
These will be great to install the new bushings but my challenge has been to get the old ones out.

[mrraford]

I've used the tap and tap them out approach for distributor bushings for years with great success. That is a very useful thought. I just didn't have a tap of the correct size to do the brake shafts.

[H. L. Chauvin]

FWIW, few words of caution:

1. Even though it may never happen, & maybe cannot happen with some; however, on the other Model A Forum a few years back, someone posted something about an accident concerning someone inserting a tap in a bushing & hitting the tap with a hammer whereby a small piece of the brittle high carbon steel cutter on the tap flew off & luckily embedded in someone's forehead thus missing his eye .............. or something like that; hence it was recommended that "if" one inserts a tap in a bushing, to remove the tap, & rather than hit the tap, thread a softer steel bolt in the bushing & safely hit in the bolt.

2. Another similar type of accident we often hear about is with using carpenter's claw hammers in a mechanic's shop whereby for an example one tries to pry out a mechanical part with the claw of one carpenter hammer, & hits the head of this hammer with the head of another claw hammer, thus having tiny pieces of tempered metal flying off & getting lodged under one's skin. (I witnessed this type of accident once, (claw hammer hitting claw hammer), where my friend got injured while engaged in carpenter work).

3. If one goes to a job site & looks at framing carpenter's hammers, it is not difficult to find a few claw hammers with pieces of steel missing from the claw hammer heads.

4. Just hope this helps if one encounters bushing which are very difficult to remove -- maybe the worse case scenario: How about hitting the hard carbon steel tap with a hardened claw hammer head? ....... Never tried it yet ...... maybe next on my list?

[Wick]

There is also a tool you find at Flea markets and antique tool shows,it's a tapered shaft about 6" long with threads on the end going from small to large. The top you can put a 3/4" wrench on. Just screw the small in into the bushing untill it get's tight. Then tap it from the other side. I will post a picture of mine later.
Also makes a good "What is this" topic.

[Stinch]

Pushing the old bearing into the center would require you to pull off the grease fitting and drill a new hole to allow grease to get into the housing.

[Roger V]

Housings that I've dealt with did not have the bore for the bushing OD all the way through. It may have been about the equivalent length of 1 1/2 bushings so there was a shoulder that would prevent driving the bushing all the way through.

[Joe K]

Originally Posted by Wick

There is also a tool you find at Flea markets and antique tool shows,it's a tapered shaft about 6" long with threads on the end going from small to large. The top you can put a 3/4" wrench on. Just screw the small in into the bushing untill it get's tight. Then tap it from the other side. I will post a picture of mine later.
Also makes a good "What is this" topic.

Also "Blacksmith taps" were available at the turn of the 20th century. Full tooth form the entire length, the tap "tapered" evenly from one end to the other.

This apparently to compensate for adjustments to the die made necessary by hand forming a diameter (and no lathe available.) In effect, each hand made bolt had a hand made nut to go with it (and were usually marked as a pair.)

From the Strelinger Catalog 1895.




Joe K

[Stinch]

Is 9/16" the recommended tap size to thread into the bushing?

Rich