We have a home made tool that gets used alot. I was just wanting to share it with every one. We take a piece of rod(that may take a little grinding) ( a drill on a bench grinder works great) to fit the rod in your diegrinder. Length is your preference. Cut a groove with the diegrinder wheel in one end of the rod deep enough to put a piece of emory cloth in. Usually we use a long piece of cloth and fold it in half. U can make it as long as u need. Im telling you if u need to clean up a rusty hole you will save some time. We use them a lot to clean up cylinders before re-packing them. Later ~Joe
Sounds lika a good idea. Our home made tool is a pin driver for excavator bucket pins and such. It is an axle out of a truck, or maybe a scraper, something large, but smaller than the smallest pins we deal with, 80 mm. The axle is about 2 1/2' long or so, and then we have a 6X6" heavy wall box tubing section a couple feet long welded to it. There is a handle on the box section, and a lifting eye at the balance point. Make sure the axle sticks out past the lifting eye farther than your longest pin you need to drive. I think mine weighs about 100 to 150 pounds. Now it is a 1 man job to drive bucket pins. No more swinging the 16 pound sledge and only mushrooming the end of the pin. This sucker hits hard. Just hold it up with the crane on the service truck and use the handle to pull it back then give it a little boost. Even the most stubborn 130 mm pin on the 375 just jumps out of the bore with this sucker. Work smarter, not harder
Cool tools fellas.
I chucked the core of a bowden cable in my drill once to clean the inside of a gas tank on my bike.Just hold the housing and let her spin.You can bend the end to increase the area it contacts as it is spinning or decrease it to get into small places.If you use it on a gas tank make sure that it is clean as that iron wire could create some sparks I imagine .Ron G
Well to add to your cable trick. I ran Etnyre chipspreaders for 8 yrs. I had to splice the conveyor belts every year. Instead of beating on that cable for an hour, i now chuck the cable in my cordless drill and put them in in 30 sec. Sometimes TAPPING on the hinge at the same time helps. If u ever get to try this out u will enjoy splicing belts.
Good thread ..Made me think of the other day a customer looked on my shop wall of all my "homemade " tools and said whats with all homemade tools..My reply was simple " I'm a country boy you give me a problem I'll do something even if it's wrong" ..I love makin tools ...My favorite one is my universal splitting stands for big tractors ..
JDOFMEMI Jerry can you send me pictures of that pin driver? Would like to make one. THANKS ED
I don't have any pictures of it, but next time I am around it and have a camera I will try to remember to get some.
I use a valve from a giant engine for beating out pins... It's about 2 foot long.. 1 inch diameter stem... the valve is about 4 inches... saved a few busted hands and or fingers. I think it's held up pretty well... for it's salvaged use... It's taking a few hits with an 8 pound sledge..
JDOFMEMI I would like also to see a picture or at least a crude drawing of your "drift". Is the tubing just placed over the shaft as a handle? Sounds very handy. Thanks
Thanks for the ideas folks. I once needed an injector puller for a 5.9 Cummins so found a old worn through fuel line and cut off the female threads and welded it to a shaft...slide a pipe over the shaft and weld a cap on and bingo you get a nifty little injector puller that works like a slide hammer. Clear as mud aye? Have a wonderful day.
Using old large engine valves could be deadly. some old stationary engines had sodium filled valves for cooling and could explode when hit with a hammer or grind on stem.
I needed an injector puller myself. After seeing a picture of one in my service manual i got an idea. I made one out of plain old galvanized plumbing fittings and a piece of pipe about 2 feet long. Worked great!