• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!

    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Crypt Car is Broken Again

Guys:
If a person was to T.I.G. weld the mounting holes in solid, how hard would it be to re-locate, drill and tap new mounting holes?

One of my primary jobs as a welder was to rebuild parts with this same kind of damage.

Of course as a welder I never did any of the machine work. {that part of the repair was sent over to the machine shop for completion.}

Any Machinists in the bunch? {with acess to equipment}

Kerry
 
Dale
DPO Pedro is at it again. Send me an e-mail to let me know what's up and how I can help
Dave
 
Will do David-

Looks like I'll be installing new trailing arm
bushings again. They must be the shortest used
T/A bushings in TR6 history. I'm pretty sure less
than 300 miles on them.

That DPO Pedro seems to haunt me, doesn't he?

d
 
So Dale, what's the damage? Think you can keep the old arms and just (safely!) repair them?

I had to HeliCoil mine, even glued the spring-looking apparatus in before inserting the bolt. This particular setup on the TR6 was a major weak point from BL. I think many enthusiasts on this forum would be surprised to find some less-than safe bolts on their own swing arms. Using a fine-thread bolt on soft aluminum is just plain dump.

~can hear the sound of air hammers pulling rear wheels off preparing to check their bolts~
 
Nope Bill, it looks pretty grim.

I removed the helicoils? this morning and the stud holes
are in really poor condition. A re-bore would leave very
little metal at the outer edges.

Plus the u-joint ground out quite a bit of aluminum
from the trailing arm inside when the bottom helicoils
popped out.

I think Paul is gonna help my out with some spare TAs.

I'm still unclear how to tell if my rear hub itself is OK.
Any diagnostic procedure I can perform with hub out of the
car?

This is really a major setback to me. I thought the terrible
stuff was behind me.

The Boss is talking about The Crusher again!
" No more good money into a bad car", says Wendy the retired
financial analyst.

It does not look real promising for the Crypt Car this
morning. And Wendy is not even aware how close we came to
serious injury yesterday.

D
 
As long as the wheel didn't come off. That would have caused major damage to the hub (as well as to you). Remember, these U-joints are pretty tough and any flexure I would think the joint handled it well.


<span style='font-size: 8pt'>remember my offer last year....as my kids would say on a bad vacation, "are we having fun yet?"</span>
 
Paul's offer sounds the best option! Just be sure and use new fasteners and a torque wrench when putting it back together.

Otherwise Kerry has the right idea for repairing the arms, something you might do even if you install the ones from Paul.
Just find the best welder on the island and have a machinist involved before the welding is done. Maybe Kerry has an overnight bag! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
Dale, when you changed the bushings on the swing arm a while back, you had to have the swing arm on the bench. Didn't you take the hub off then? Perchance, like you need to hear this, did you overtorque the bolts when you reassembled?

I am quite serious, most of you out there with the IRS suspension should check your own setups. This area is a very vulnerable site and prone to catastrophic failure. Thank goodness Dale and his bride were able to stop before total failure.

The beauty of the HeliCoil is it uses coarse threads to engage the aluminum and fine threads to engage the bolt. And, along with something like high-strength Locktite, it holds very well.
 
This is just part-and-parcel of owning forty-year old vehicles... a Chevy or Ford of the same vintage would be as 'compromised' as Crypty. Mebbe more-so. How many of THOSE beasts are viable transport now?

Crypty is down to a "fix-I-go" status now, it'd be a crime IMO to cut and run. 'sides: bean-counters ~always~ use the bottom line to come to decisions... not necessarily the best way to evaluate a circumstance.

Just my take. <shrugs>


EDIT: See: https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=memberarticles

The "prejudice" one.
 
I agree with the good Doctor. I also own a 64 Chevelle El Camino, and was just pricing all the suspension bushings for it. CHOKE, CHOKE!! Pretty much $2,000 U.S. plus exchange to Canada and shipping and taxes and , well you get the story.
If you own old cars, there will be no cash left over for the kids. But, HEY, we're doing what we love, aren't we?
Dave
 
Shirley, "I sure hope our tax refund comes soon."
Tom, "Well, don't count on the money for anything. It will be needed to finish the TR6 work."
Shirley, "I know that, I just wish it were here so the car could be finished."

Tom, "What a woman!!"
 
Dale,
You are the biggest hero on this board. I am sure that most of the rest of us would have given up on the Crypt by now after all of the bad luck you have had. I certainly would have (in fact I did with a Herald I disassembled and took to the dump last year that I think was sold to me by Pedro's cousin in the north of England!)
I'm impressed how you just got on with disassembling the rear end to find the fault. I think I would have left Cryptie to sit and sulk in the garage for a few weeks.
Some good used trailing arms seem to be the answer.
By way of consolation. I know someone who only found out they had a similar problem when the front of the car seemed to rise and there was a shower of sparks in the rear view mirror. Then they noticed a wheel bouncing past them and discovered the brakes had stopped functioning. The rear wing was completely mashed, too, by the time they stopped.
Good luck to you. You have a global following wishing you well.
 
Hey Tom!!

You wrote:

"you had to have the swing arm on the bench. Didn't you take the hub off then?
Perchance, like you need to hear this, did you overtorque the bolts when you reassembled
?

Well Tom, actually I didn't do any of that. You forget that
I know almost nothing about auto mechanics. Changing the
T/A bushings was one of the very first things I attempted to repair on Crypty.

So flying blind, as it were, I used multiple different jacks, unbolted a u-joint
and let the axle slip out enough to grab the T/A bushing
bolts.

So I never touched the hub or it's fastening studs. Stupid
me I didn't know any better..............

D /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/nopity.gif dead car again

TABushings.jpg
 
Ouch Bill!!

It seems I had a visit from my Uncle Al Ziemer again!
I gets befuddled from time to time, you know.

Good news within bad news. I popped off the driver's
side rear stuff and everything is tight as a Scotman's
coin purse. No wobble in anything and no thunks or thumps.
I can't see any signs of helicoils either. All six studs
were tight. That's the good news.

The bad news is I have to replace one entire trailing arm.
Paul has kindly offered me one of his spares. So it looks
like I have to pull out the one that is messed up.

DPO Pedro!!

I've gathered my courage and my tools and will "have at it."
I'm hoping Master mechanic David Graves will give me some
pointers. My knowledge of auto mechanics is about next to zilch, as everyone knows by now. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grouphug.gif

So, I'll mail Paul my buggered up T/A and hope maybe someone
Stateside can repair it so some other lost soul like me can
use it i the future. I like the concept of AL weld filling
the stud holes.

here we go!

tools2-1.jpg
 
There isnt any part of this T.A. that cant be repaired by T.I.G. welding. The question is, how cost effective would it be? How rare is this part? What is the availaibility?
Im thinking the best repair would be to weld ALL of the mouinting holes up, then have a machine shop instal helicoils in thier place {Possibly the end user could do the helicoil instalation, depending on how accuratly located these mounting holes need to be.} {Although I suspect that the P.O. or one of his cohorts did TRY to instal the helicoils that were bad.}
Instaling a helicoil is something that need to be done to a specific proceedure and NO sloppy work can be tolerated. In any case these parts will become rare items in the future because of thier design and failuire rate alone. So if you have these trailing arms, even if they are damaged, by all means hang on to them.
Kerry
 
Back
Top