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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
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    Laidley, SE Qld
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    Default Quick and simple method of making back axle U bolts

    Messing around with old cars I like to fit new U bolts just to be sure to be sure, I use the following method of making them.

    a) Measure the old U bolts - length, width, bolt diameter, thread type.
    b) Convey the information to Carroll Springs (Brisbane Sydney Melbourne) or any other competent truck suspension repairer.
    c) Pay Carroll Springs $16 per U bolt.

    Job done.

    These U bolts are 3 5/8" ID x 1/2" UNF, they come complete with nuts and washers.

    IMG_1266.jpg

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
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    Southern Highlands NSW
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    Default

    I put a sidecar onto a motor scooter, making a couple of large U bolts as the main attaching fasteners.
    I sourced some suitable rod, heated and bent them and plunged them in oil, following suggestions such as were available, and fitted them.
    Before I test drove it, I had a cup of tea when I heard two loud "pings" in quick succession. Both of them had snapped.
    Glad I was thirsty.

    Jordan

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    melbourne australia
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    3,228

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by nadroj View Post
    I sourced some suitable rod,...
    I guess it wasn’t suitable after all. Quick and simple method of making back axle U bolts



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Chris

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
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    6,446

    Default

    I have witnessed an attempt to make square-cornered U bolts from a continuous rolled thread. The persons concerned did not want to listen to my opinion.

    It ended in failure and broke in the corner due to the notch already present via the thread plus it was galled rod.

    It was deeply satisfying to tell that particular pair of smart rrsses " told you so"

    Grahame

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Near Bendigo, Victoria, AUS
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    72
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    3,102

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by nadroj View Post
    I put a sidecar onto a motor scooter, making a couple of large U bolts as the main attaching fasteners.
    I sourced some suitable rod, heated and bent them and plunged them in oil, following suggestions such as were available, and fitted them.
    Before I test drove it, I had a cup of tea when I heard two loud "pings" in quick succession. Both of them had snapped.
    Glad I was thirsty.

    Jordan
    Oops,
    but I'm not surprised.... heating them and plunging them in oil - if they were high carbon steel - would make them glass hard and brittle....
    Cheers, Joe
    retired - less energy, more time to contemplate projects and more shed time....

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
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    moonbi nsw Aus
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    69
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    364

    Default

    I apologise for the following to be off topic but I had great satisfaction telling a couple of clowns "I told you so". We were building a large shed. We had a post hole attachment on the back of a tractor to give us a pier hole 300 diameter and 1200 deep. As with any post hole digger you drill then clear the auger a number of times until you reach the desired depth. We did the first one and some dirt fell back into the hole. The clowns I was working with told me I would have to dig the surplus dirt out by hand.....I told them there was no need because a bucket of water dropped into the hole followed by the auger to mix things up would do it.....argument ensued.... when I did the water "thing" followed by the auger.....guess what....clean hole!!!
    How did I know it would work? When I was an apprentice Carpenter on a big job we were drilling 600mm holes up to 3mts deep and that is how we cleaned them. The 2 clowns were very sheepish afterward.

    I suppose the thing is that when we know we are right, it is frustrating when others just won't listen to us
    Just do it!

    Kind regards Rod

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    melbourne australia
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    Quote Originally Posted by chambezio View Post
    The 2 clowns were very sheepish afterward.
    I'd be happy to have those "clowns" digging my post holes. In my experience a lot of blokes wouldn't even bother to dig out the loose soil before pouring the concrete.
    Chris

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Southern Highlands NSW
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jhovel View Post
    Oops,
    but I'm not surprised.... heating them and plunging them in oil - if they were high carbon steel - would make them glass hard and brittle....
    These days I'd run it past as many knowledgeable people as possible, before trying something that could be dangerous.
    It's the best thing about the internet.

    Jordan

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
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    Aldinga Beach.
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    73
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    148

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    I used to do a bit of blacksmithing: knives, chisels, hammers, all sorts of things. When I started out I tried quenching in water, the metal simply cracked and was like glass. Oil was a different matter, cooling the metal a little slower and giving a nice level of hardness with which to start running colours.

    Centuries ago, some blacksmiths quenched swords by heating them and then plunging them through POWs, some kept POWs expressly for this purpose. They had no idea why it worked, but work it did and the swords were thus imbued with magical properties and considered superior to swords quenched in other mediums. There are stories of blacksmiths selling magical quenching fluids to other less intelligent smithies, claiming their quenching liquid had magical properties. The fluid of course was salt water.

    My Grandfather was a Smithy who came out from England and found work with the WA Fire Brigade, shoeing their wooden wagon wheels and so on, he passed a set of wood chisels on to my old man which I abused as a kid, using them on metal or anything else I wanted to chop up. These chisels were truly amazing. He also passed on a set of wood bodied planes he fashioned and also made the blades for, works of art. I can remember the chisels having large split mushroom tops from all the pounding they received from three generations of our clan. He died before I was born, would have loved to talk to him about metalergy and blacksmithing.

    Funnily enough my old man was a talented woodworker/carpenter, hardly ever touched metal, although he certainly seemed to know quite a bit about working with metal, I think perhaps he may have watched his old man at work more than a few times.

    I

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    USA, Oakville
    Posts
    5

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    Quote Originally Posted by nadroj View Post
    I put a sidecar onto a motor scooter, making a couple of large U bolts as the main attaching fasteners.
    I sourced some suitable rod, heated and bent them and plunged them in oil, following suggestions such as were available, and fitted them.
    Before I test drove it, I had a cup of tea when I heard two loud "pings" in quick succession. Both of them had snapped.
    Glad I was thirsty.

    Jordan
    Ahh you were lucky. For the future you need to watch out to make the hardening depth not too deep. ;-)

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
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    Riddells Creek, Vic.
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    831

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    Quote Originally Posted by MetalMan551 View Post
    Ahh you were lucky. For the future you need to watch out to make the hardening depth not too deep. ;-)

    How would you do that?

  12. #12
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Perth
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    Quote Originally Posted by onanonanon View Post
    I used to do a bit of blacksmithing: knives, chisels, hammers, all sorts of things. When I started out I tried quenching in water, the metal simply cracked and was like glass. Oil was a different matter, cooling the metal a little slower and giving a nice level of hardness with which to start running colours.
    The best quench material depends on the type of steel being treated.
    For example water (or better still salt water) is actually recommended for S1 and W1 steels.
    For many steels, air quenching in rapidly circulating or even still air is used.

    [For newbies] If all that is done is quench in water (especially to the wrong steel) and nothing else, then it's no wonder the steel cracks.
    The final hardness is achieved by a follow up tempering process and should pull the hardness back even from a glass hard piece of steel.
    Too slow a quench in oil can result also lead to problems because the steel does not reach its full hardness potential which can mean it will then not temper correctly.
    The same thing happens if too little oil is used.
    Another reason why water is not usually as good as oil for one steels is that it produces more of an uneven hardening which as well as causing cracks can cause an uneven tempering. Maybe thats what you means by a "nice level of hardness"?

    My GF was also a BS and he worked mainly shoeing bullocks and horses in the European alps.
    He often worked on site and used horse and cart for transport. During WWII horses were likely to be stolen and eaten so he went everywhere often for miles by bicycle. He carried a portable forge, bellows, tools, steel stock and coke on his bike. During the latter years of the war there was a strict curfew in place between 6pm to 6am and as he often had to set off at 5am he was often stopped and searched as a suspected partisan. Once he had to go 10 miles up into the mountain to a work camp to shoe bullocks and set off at 4am. He was stopped and arrested as he didn't have his ID on him, but they quickly found out who he was and as they we going that way the Germans drove him up to the work camp in a truck so he arrived early. Going back down the mountains with all the gear by bike was pretty hair-raising and sometimes he would come off. I never got to meet him either, as we live thousands of km apart and he died when I was 4. In my 20's I finally got to see his forge and stables which was out the back of my uncle's place. There was nothing left of the tools etc just some coke and nails in amongst the cobble stone floor.

  13. #13
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    Jan 2018
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    Aldinga Beach.
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    Nice googling, but. it's about the carbon content of the steel in relation to quenching and running colours. Car springs make excellent knives, car axles don't as the carbon content is relatively low by comparison, they do make good hammers though. Aside from oil and salt water, lemons and lemon juice were also a quenching solution.

    Way back, carbon was infused into metals by wrapping the metal in hair, bone and basically anything containing carbon. The lot was then wrapped in clay and fired for very, very long periods.

  14. #14
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    Mar 2018
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    USA, Oakville
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    Quote Originally Posted by Techo1 View Post
    How would you do that?
    just kidding

  15. #15
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    Never heard of hardening carbon steels to depths. Although, these days I suppose it could be possible with the advances in matallurgy and the different methods of heating and tempering from the classic blacksmithing approach. When tempering (running colours) you can temper different areas to different tempers, ie, a knife for example should have a softish handle (blue), where the blade would be hard enough to keep an edge but soft enough to permit sharpening (straw). When I was making them I tempered the blade itself to different colours: the tip and back of blade being a purple/brown colour, handle blue and the cutting edge a light straw. These colours differed slightly depending on the carbon content of the steel being used. I found this ideal as the blade being tempered to different hardnesses parallel to it's length had the benefit of being tough enough to withstand abuse and hard enough to hold an edge.

    I always had great trouble making a decent looking blood channel so just cut a slot in the blade on a couple. The channel/groove serves no purpose other than aesthetics. And of course it sounds good, particularly as applied to fighting or Bowie knives. It was thought it made it easier to remove the knife from a body but modern science has proved this a nonsense.

    Leaf springs and coil springs from cars were ideal materials for knives, chisels and so on. Leaf springs being the best as they required the least amount of hammering. If not hammered correctly the curve of the spring would return after the blade was quenched. Similarly if one side of the blank was hammered more than the other, that would also result in the blade curling.

    At one time I banged out a few Bowie type knives with 12" blades with brass pommels and guards and aluminium handles, extremely popular with some. Thinking back, I probably should have sold them rather than give them away. Over the years I've pretty well lost everything I made. Biggest problem was rust!

    I'd love to do a little blacksmithing again, but the smoke from the coke when not being fanned would probably annoy the neighbours.

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