Just add an old mobility scooter...

Did you get the adjuster?

Just add an old mobility scooter...

You have gone and done it now Dave.. Won`t be sleeping properly again until I find a way to tell the missus I need another one. Not to mention the fact I will need to rob a bank anyway and will probably have to store it in the bedroom. Really like this colour as well. My dad has a mobility scooter so I`m halfway there 

Did you get the adjuster?

 
Hi Dave.. Yes adjuster arrived. Exactly what I need. Many thanks

   Wow... Even the flowers coming out for a look see.. Same colour as well   Amazing as it`s now November and the outside temperature was 5oC

King Link Pin Renewal, (Bear with me because photobucket has become like "dial up" internet was and is a nightmare).
OK.. get everything you need close to hand and have a mate if you can cos this is a three hands better than two thing as I prefer not to clamp the stub axle down for the link pin bush removal bit. Need a blow torch\17mm socket\15mm socket\9mm socket\Large hammer\paraffin for clean up as you go. (Blow torch ... end of flame is hottest and try to heat evenly). Remove "pinch bolts". Pull stub axle off torsion arms. (Pinch bolts come out easily if you turn the end of the link pin using the squared end to take off tension) Might need some grips to pull out the link pins from the arms. Twist as you pull). Take a look at the photo and you can see the shims and the "O" ring seal. )ne of the seal is snapped. Both are decrepit and have let water and muck in. Must replace these o rings with new.
Shims.. fitted either side of bush housing. 8 off top and 8 bottom in my case. (10 off each pin up to 1960). If your shims show any corrosion replace with new as the "offset" is set with these shims. (Will cover this in re-assembly). There is a dimpled cover plate that is not shown in the photo =. Don`t lose them.




Leave the grease nipples alone for now. Choose what you are going to support the bush housing on. I use a vice with jaws fully open and stretch the two housing sections across this. Make sure the axle section can rotate around the mid section fairly freely so that you can move the track rod end connecting arm away from the hammer. Heat the bush housing up evenly until the grease is bubbling out. Don`t cook it though. Carefully cos it`s hot Use the 17mm socket as your drift first. Use the flat side of the hammer and drive the bush down over about 5mm or so. Then, making sure the bottom end is positioned so that the bush can continue on its journey down over, use the 15mm socket to drive bush all the way out. May take a number of hard blows with hammer but the bush will come out. When its out note the hole which lines up with grease nipple and the inner trough around which the grease goes.  Now use the 9mm socket to remove the grease nipple. because of the heat this will all but fall out. Keep the nipples. No need to replace. Again go into this later. (Next photo shows the how to of getting bush out but I have placed the bush on top of its housing with the socket above for illustration. The bush is obviously already out)



Bushes out. Grease nipples out. You have access to the king pin. You can see on the photo the bush and king pin. This is the harder part as the king pin can be really stuck in the centre body and can need a lot off careful wacking. (If you have access to a press this will save a lot of swearing).  For this I secure the assembly in the vice with a block of wood to support the bottom end. Take care with clamping so as not to damage the front and rear faces where the shims go in. The shims are a "neat fit". Try to use a long bolt or round rod as close to the king pins diameter as possible. Try to minimise the bounce when hitting with a hammer. Persevere and it will come out. Heat the king pin housing up before you let belt with the hammer. The wood may scorch so watch out. If you have a small block of iron even better.


Here is a link pin, it`s bush and the grease nipple. Keep at least one of these bushes as you are going to use one to drift the new bushes back into the assembly.

Right... back in action.... re-read of the king\link pin bit... removal of the king pin is the difficult bit... VW used a heated oil bath, (a typical method way back when I was a lad).
I havn`t seen one for years. The principle was that you put your assembly in, oil was at 80oC, and VW recommended leaving in 24 hrs. In practice I saw a time period typically being over-night. The assembly was removed and the pin knocked out whilst the assembly was hot. You can use an oven for this.

Take a look at this photo and the following one....  These are the parts dismantled. Note there is another piece, a spacer, which I have left out of the photo and will show on re-assembly. The king pin bushes are identical but one of them, when installed, needs a groove filing in the end to accommodate the cover. This will all become obvious as I go along.

Another photo...  Standard adjustable reamer. Two home made adaptors. (I am fortunate, until I retire, to have access to a guy who is happy to use a lathe to help me).
This is my way round of not having a extended reamer. The extended versions are readily available in the US at reasonable cost  but not here in the UK.
The reamer is imperial whereas VW metric. If I remember correctly the bushes were reamed to .710 and as the bushes back them were produced by or for VW they were all consistent in size. Re-production bushes are all over the place but this doesn`t matter as you are reaming each set of two bushes precisely to the o\d of the new king pin.
The principle is to insert the two bushes into the carrier. Again you need to heat this up, and also have the bush cooling in the fridge. The heat expands the carrier and the fridge cools the bush making insertion of the bush into the carrier a very easy task. When both bushes are in place the upper one needs a slot filing in it. (Will cover in detail later). When both bushes are in place the upper one is reamed to the correct diameter in stages until it is precise. The carrier is then up-ended and the second bush reamed to match the top. (The idea is to have both bushes reamed to diameter in perfect parallel to each other). To achieve this an extended reamer is used to steady itself in the housing that you are not reaming whilst you ream the other. The two bushes achieve the same result with a standard reamer that you can get off e-bay for a few pounds.
It`s unlikely anyone would spend money on re-creating this tooling for a one off go of changing king \ link pins so the set in the photo is one I have just put together as a back up to my original set and anyone who would like to have a go at this for themselves are more than welcome to borrow it. No charge.  (Just need to use this set once myself  in the next week or so to ensure the reamer itself is ok and not junk).

We have sunshine up here. More remarkable because I took a day off work to catch up.  Beam ready to go back on the frame head for the second time. Didn`t practice what I preach. Over the winter managed to get the worst paint reaction I have ever had. Back to bare metal and re-done. Looking back over wondering how many hours have gone into this one item.

We have sunshine up here. More remarkable because I took a day off work to catch up.  Beam ready to go back on the frame head for the second time. Didn`t practice what I preach. Over the winter managed to get the worst paint reaction I have ever had. Back to bare metal and re-done. Looking back over wondering how many hours have gone into this one item.

Looking smart

Yes looks 'smart' and looks 'new'.

Glad you are keeping up the momentum.

Thanks Hugh...  Strange one this. In over 46 years of using automotive paints, on a purely amateur basis, this is the very first time I have had an aerosol paint can literally burst open. The paint on the beam is a synthetic enamel. Dries to an amazing hard gloss and can be hand painted. The paint in the can was cellulose. The contents of the can shot all over me and the beam. Instantaneous reaction of both paints leaving me with no choice but to start over again by removing the mess.

You can get a stuff called Barcoat that lets you paint over anything. Ain't cheap but works

Cellulose on enamel will usually react

Hi Doon...  The name is ringing a bell. Think I may have seen it but never used any.

The synthetic enamel is a really good paint to use. Given a short time it becomes exceptionally resistant to knocks, bangs and scratches.

Difficult to describe but the reaction of cellulose and synthetic enamel is extreme. Imagine an absolute multitude of tiny hash shapes bubbling up instantly. The resulting surface literally can be peeled away and cannot be flattened with the likes of wet and dry.

This was my first foray into synthetic enamel. I have always resorted to cellulose since I started re-spraying cars etc back in the seventies.

As I say I am an amateur re-finisher. If I were to prepare another chassis from scratch I think I would opt for the epoxy option despite not having used it before. I chose not to with this buggy as it is extremely difficult to keep my garage at the recommended 20oC for spraying and then a 24 hour period of a minimum 15oC for initial curing.

This event I had with the aerosol was a shock. I was using it to paint a few small bit`s and pieces in my garage close to the buggy tub. The aerosol went of with a tremendous bang splitting down it`s seam and there was paint all over. Very fortunately this was below the level of the buggy upper surface and the paint did not go onto the gel coat. Why this aerosol, burst is a mystery.

You are lucky it was only paint that got damaged and not your eyes, that sounds really nasty

Re the paint reactions my first car when I had more enthusiasm than knowledge was a 105e bought in 1970.
First colour change was a spray job with cellulose done in the street in London with a with a little electric paint spray gun, couple of coats of primer, then yellow with a matt black bonnet and roof

Then the rust on the front wings came through again so they went in the bin and a fibreglass front went on and mahoosive rear wings, brush painted with enamel, red with darker red panelling and coachlining, again all done standing in the road

Finally brush painted (Valentines enamel) beige with a conker colour band on the side, sounds disgusting but it really worked with a bit of artwork done with left over tins from Airfix models

Had tried Hammerite on one panel, horrible, couldnt get the stuff off and reacted with almost anything else that I tried to put on top, wish that had peeled off after the reaction but it stuck like poo on pants and just looked like a really bad skin condition

Just done the floor of the buggy with cellulose that I brushed on over Barcoat, not brilliant but effective.

Good luck
Dave