Projects My GN Cycle Car tribute build

It's roller tube expander. Something like bearing without outer race and adjustable inner race diameter.
Here is the link: https://www.elliott-tool.com/tube-tools/tube-expanders/
I don't know how much it cost but maybe it can help you.

 

Interesting tool. Looks very specific to boiler type applications.
Still haven’t had time to get to it. Now have to drive kiddo back to Montreal. So much for her helping dad with the speedster. On the matter of the bead rolling tool, I had thought about using my bead roller early on, but saw that the dies were too big to fit inside the copper tube. However, watching a Ron Covell YT vid yesterday where he was reviewing/using the JS Tools bead roller, there was a segment where he used it to roll a hose bead. They have a set of dies specifically for that where one is smaller, and the other larger. I’ll have to look into that as it might be easier/faster to just machine up some dies myself.

 

That's why I said I can see how it can end up like that. I can see 2 hours in setup time for me. I'm not a professional, but if I have to pay for one I expect them to get things done.

Honestly, I would spend a day f#@$ing around, pontificating and procrastinating over the situation...In the end I would get it done and be happy as a pig in $#!T...LOL

And yet another thing, it takes time to grind a bit for the lathe. It all takes time to do properly. He did a nice job on that and even added oil lines on the shaft, so he finished that one piece for you and now you can move on to other problems!

I just built a shop and going to be moving most of my machines to it. Keeping a lathe and mill at home, but need to get another lathe setup in the new shop. It's going to take a bit to get the electrical and water sorted out for the shop, let alone the house, which is looming as well. But first I wanted the shop. I need to get 120/240-1/240-3 all wired up with outlets, including getting the sub panels connected. Good to read through your thread as I ready myself to assemble my T5. I am still not sure if I need to turn down the bearing retainer. Turned out my T5 had been rebuilt, and I should have left it as-is, but I don't want to pull this apart again and hoping it will last my life and my son's too!

 

Maybe when they invented that stupid metric system they could have made a millimeter exactly 25 to the inch...

Oops, responding to a post from 2 pages ago, sorry.

 

Haha! I’m always switching between metric and imperial when fabbing stuff. You would think by now I would know the equivalent metric measurements between the two for common imperial fractions.

So back at it, and back into town. Picked up some new tips and HSS blanks for the lathe as well a new bench grinder. Going to machine up the hose bead dies and use my bead roller. I started modding it a few years ago, and stopped just short of installing a 12VDC variable speed motor I had from a old wheelchair. Somewhere I have a cheap foot pedal for it as well. I’ll just use the hand crank for now to test things out. Hopefully, I’ll have a prototype copper tube beaded tonight.

 

Not too bad. Upper die (male) was moving back and forth on the shaft even with the set screw tightened. I need to add a bolt and washers to the end of the shaft to keep it from moving. It also needs some “tuning” on the profile, but we have something useful.

 

Did some tuning of the dies. Happy with this result for now. Onto the expander tool redux…

 

Haha! My tees and hoodie already arrived from Make it Kustom. I love watching Karl’s vids.

 

So, of course I cannot find the 10.9 grade metric hardware I bought. Story of my life. I used the 1/2” threaded rod again (new section), but used a coupler instead of a single nut. Went to use my oxy torch, but the acetylene tank was making a funny noise when I cracked open the valve. Something is likely leaking, so that was a no no. Instead used my MAPP torch, and was able to get it red hot. I noticed a crack in the pipe while heating it up, likely from me using it before to expand it or make a hose bead. Decided to go ahead anyways, and it kinda of worked. It was much easier to expand, but the crack opened up. I got the OD to 1.723”, so almost 1.75”. Trying again with the other end of the copper pipe which looks good.

 

Success gentlemen! Finally after a week of messing around. I even added a bead. Bead went on much easier with far fewer turns of the adjustment screw on the bead roller. Annealing made the difference. So happy, this experimental stage is done. Now I can continue with mocking up the cooling piping.

 

Got the OD to about 1.730”. Didn’t feel like pushing it to 1.75” as it was getting much harder to tighten the coupler. Still fits nicely on the hose.
I’m telling you with some skill, luck, and determination, you can accomplish pretty much anything you put your mind to.

 

Xlent.

 

Picked up the silver brazing rod and flux for the copper pipe. Sales guy says to use a number 0 tip. Seems small to me. Also ordered the 6VDC 16” rad fan from Speedway.

 

Finished up expanding and bead rolling all the copper pipes and fittings except the 90 degree one that comes out of the rad. I have to cut away at the frame gusset where the fitting goes, so I want to be sure of the routing before wasting a $40 copper fitting. All in all, it took less than 2 hrs to anneal, expand, and bead roll the pipes and fittings. Not bad in my world. Lol!
Tomorrow the hose clamps are supposed to arrive. If they do arrive, I’ll pick them. Also noticed my tank for my MIG welder is completely empty. D’oh! Also, I checked my acetylene tank this morning, and no more weird noise.

 

It just occurred to me that I can use my copper pipe test piece to secure my thermostat into position against the outlet neck in the head. The OD of the unexpanded section fits perfectly inside the ID of the gasket, and the expanded portion with the hose bead will fit tightly inside the hose, and with a clamp it won’t be going anywhere. Will need to fab up another tomorrow.

 

It reminds me of pipe dream I had in the 60's.

 

Made the second “stop” from another piece of test copper. It was already beaded but not expanded, so expanded it, but had to re-bead it.



Also ordered this temp switch to activate the rad fan. Wasn’t sure whether this is any good and if I chose the best ON/OFF temps based on 180F thermostats.

 

Clamps were actually scheduled to come in on the 15th, and they did. So, back into town yesterday. I took the “extra” qty 5 that came in with my order as I may add some extra joints. Now they are out of stk again, and I’m now the ahole that took all of their stk. Can’t believe they didn’t order another box of 20.
After watching more YT vids on brazing copper pipe, I’ve decided to just solder the joints. The guy in one vid bent a 90 degree fitting he had brazed to two short pieces of pipe. It had absolutely no strength because of the annealing caused by the high temp of the oxy torch. He folded it like a pretzel. He then tried to bend a soldered joint and couldn’t. That was all I needed to see.
Looked into how to get nice square cuts on coolant hose as all three of the Gates 90 degree elbows are not cut square. Came across this thread on the HAMB. Also saw the first vid in the HAMB thread before I found the HAMB thread. Thought that was funny. Lol!
I tried a few things, but will post that info in that thread. Happy with the results as both elbows attached to the heads should be the same dimensionally.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/how-to-make-perfect-radiator-hose-cuts.1216428/

 

Installed/mocked up the trimmed down Gates elbows on the heads and water pumps along with double wire clamps. I’m glad I went with this style of clamp. Going to have to either trim the Gates elbow or shorten the copper pipe on the PS head.
Next is fabbing up some pipe supports using the U-bolts.

 

Thinking of something along the lines of this to support the copper pipes where they run next to the inner frame rail. Not sure if I would just weld it to the frame, or weld a flat plate to the end, and bolt it to the frame if I have some studs welded to the frame. I’ll have to shorten it to get it closer to the frame. Also, got to get some 1.625” ID straight coolant hose. This is a 1.75” ID hose which I thought I might need, but I now don’t think I’ll using it. My Makita angle grinder is giving up the ghost and has a vibration to it. Seems the main bearing is going. Something else to look into as I already have a non-functioning air compressor.

 

Think I’ve figured out the hanger for the coolant pipes. Will post pics once fabbed up and installed. Picked up a new Makita grinder yesterday, and ordered a 6V solenoid/relay for the radiator fan which I’ll get today along with more hardware for the hangers. Temp switch should be in tomorrow.

 

So, the day has gone to hell. Get home, lunch, then start working. Go to use my old Ryobi disc/belt sander and it doesn’t start. I’m like this cannot be happening. First it was my compressor, then my grinder, and now this. Take it apart, see nothing wrong. Then try another outlet. It starts! Great! Flip it upright after swapping out the disc and it doesn’t start again. WTF!? I’m like screw this. I’m getting a new bigger one. Rush to get dressed as it is just before 4:00 and store closes at 5:00 and it’s about 45 mins to get to town, and it’s rush hr. Make it there 7 mins before they close. Oh yeah, while all this is going on, kiddo asks me if I’m going into town. Explain to her what happened. She’s like great - can you pick up a used chair I just bought? Well ok. After I grab my sander, I head over to the house about 20 mins away. Get there, old lady comes out. Who are you? Tell her I’m here to pick up the chair. She smiles, and says I have the wrong place and goes on to say it happens all the time with Google maps. Tells me to go one street over. After this cluster decide to get a pizza to go at a pub not far away. Was there a couple years earlier and food was good and reasonably priced. Get there, tell them I want to order a pizza to go. She tells me they stopped selling pizza two months ago. F$ck! Tells me there is a pizza place a few doors down. Now stuffing my face in the truck, then off to the liquor store. Lol!

 

The new Craftex 12” disc sander is a bit of a beast compared to the Ryobi 6” disc/belt combo, but I think it is a long overdue upgrade. Quality is so so for this Chinese made unit, but it does come with a 3 yr warranty. It’s nice to have a larger working surface, and one that can so far stay square. The small mitre gage is almost Fisher-Price toy like. Lol! Will need to do something about that. Now back to where I left off…

 

Use Norton Blue Zirconia discs, absolutely the best.

 

I’ve typically been using Freud discs on my Ryobi as that was all they stocked at Home Depot. Not really impressed with them. Not sure what brand came with the Craftex. Bought a few extra as they were on sale for $9.99. I recently watched a vid by Wray Shelin and he swore by Norton. He said their factory was only 20 mins away. Lol!

 

Working on these clamps for the coolant pipes has been way harder and way more time consuming than the actual piping. Getting super frustrating. Was hoping to get a lot more done, but only managed to finish the clamp for the water pump(s) inlet pipe.




I decided to use these furniture style female threaded nuts (cut off the cleats). I’ll tack them in place to the frame.



Made up this crude wooden jig to make the semi-circular cut out in the 1” sq tubing. Works pretty good, but hard to get things symmetrical. The one piece which gets drilled is only good for two passes, then I need to make another.

 

Another clamp made and installed. This is ridiculous. A lot of time spent head scratching trying to figure what possible attachment points to use.
Had to make an indent on the bracket to allow some clearance for a socket to get on the head of the 10 mm hex bolt used to secure the trans cover. Also, will need to create another support on top to keep the pipe assembly coming off the heads from vibrating. Think I’ll use the breather spout opening on the intake. Still haven’t figured out where the next clamp will go as the pipe passes the end of trans tailshaft.

 

Added the hose bead to the two 45 degree elbows and installed a length of hose to create a joint to isolate the piping attached to the engine and that which will be attached to the chassis. Will try somehow to attach the clamp to the holes in the bottom of tail-shaft hsg. That’s it for the coolant piping from the heads to the rad inlet. I’ll add one more clamp to the back of the seat.



The coolant switch for the radiator fan arrived, and I picked up the solenoid/relay for the fan. I’m using the same solenoid for the starter, but can’t find it. Also couldn’t find my Makita cordless drill since yesterday. Found it on a shelf where I had left it while fixing the draw cord on my infrared heater. D’oh! This type of $hit drives me nuts.