Need a tool?
- Thread starter RoadScholar
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There just isn't room to engage the hex with any meaningful part of a wrench, crow's foot, open end or box. I'm hoping that the 12 point 3/8-26 nut that I purchased earlier today will give me the room to apply some torque.
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I use a short (4" long) Blue Point ring spanner, to which I had welded a 9/16" nut on the end opposite to the target nut size. Then, using a 9/16" socket with my torque wrench at 90 deg (no correction necessary), I am able to get enough arc to easily torque the nut.
Slick
Slick
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Interesting. I never thought about it until I read your post, but couldn't you run a short bolt through the box end opposite of wrench end on the bolt, cinch the bolt with two nuts, with one nut in the wrench, and then put the torque wrench on the bolt end, at the requisite 90 degrees?
The only thing I don't like about the CNW stuff is that it makes all the Whitworth tools I've saved and searched for over the years superfluous!!
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Thanks, I believe that you had pointed me to this tool in an earlier part of this thread. But, there just isn't enough room to get the "S" wrench, or any other on the hex. I firmly believe that the barrel has an anomaly.
Fortunately I have two options: 1) Hope that the 12 point 3/8-26 nut that I found will quickly solve my fastening issue, or 2) pull the barrel and hog out the space that the nut rotates in.
Fortunately I have two options: 1) Hope that the 12 point 3/8-26 nut that I found will quickly solve my fastening issue, or 2) pull the barrel and hog out the space that the nut rotates in.
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Perhaps a Dremel tool would make the job possible, without having to pull the barrel.
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It's a possibility, but the stud occupies a good portion of the available space, the cast iron is pretty thick in there, and I'd need to get behind the stud; it's got to be similar to dentistry. If I get to the stage where I have to enlarge the cavity the nut lives in I'm going to remove the barrel, take it somewhere where the metallic dust I generate won't poison any of the other projects in my shop, and have at it.
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@Robert_Norton
Yes! Your idea would have saved me the other end of the spanner to use elsewhere!
I do not mind permanently altering a tool. It becomes a "special", and therefore more valuable.
Slick
Yes! Your idea would have saved me the other end of the spanner to use elsewhere!
I do not mind permanently altering a tool. It becomes a "special", and therefore more valuable.
Slick
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I may not comprehend the hang up but hope you solve it by a special tool or failure of brutal metal removal. Glad its not me this case, so semi-enjoying learning from your cliff hanger saga. Special more valuable tool to you implies ruined shade tree bodge to others : )
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The 12 point nut did not offer any additional room to swing a wrench, so the cylinder comes off and will be machined.
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Yes and yes. I inquired about the availability of a small hex, or small head 12 point fastener for the tight space. Joe wrote me saying that there was plenty of meat on the cylinder and that it's integrity wouldn't be compromised by removing material in the space surrounding the inaccessible fastener.
It's times like these, and there are more than a few, that I identify with Sisyphus...
Fast Eddie
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Did Joe offer any insight in to what the root cause of your issue might be?
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Getting hold of Whitworth crows foot might be difficult, but if you took an open ended spanner i thinkits 3/8 grind off its flanks so it can move further within the barrel recess - its only got to torque 25 ft lbs so you can be radical ,then shorten the spanner to about 3or4inches... Find an old largish cheapo socket and cut a slot in it to take the shortened spanner arm , blolb of weld to keep it in place and you now have a crows foot .Surely quicker and easier than taking the barrel off
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Joe wrote that the barrel is a work-in-progress and that they are endeavoring to address any issues and thanked me for pointing out this anomaly. It isn't clear to me whether my barrel represents an error in the casting process or a precision mistake. I'm happy to have the part, and with virtually all things Norton, some fitting is usually required. The fix is far from rocket science, just another pain in the back side on the road to the road, so to speak.
I appreciate your reply, but as I mentioned earlier there just isn't enough room to engage the nut. If I ground down a wrench so that it would (possibly) engage the hex it wouldn't have enough "beef" to apply effective torque. There is less than 1/16" clearance on the port and starboard side of the nut, something less forward. Once I get the barrel off and stripped a vertical miller will make short work of the excess casting.
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well after all that; how can the "NEW" AN barrel be so different to the ones we've been using for the last 40+ yrs. it seems all the good advice in this forum does not apply when the apples turn out to be oranges... i'll bet every suggestion works, just not on the "NEW" barrel.
Bill; how about a picture ?
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The need for a special thinned-down spanner/wrench to fit the #2 nut (1/4 Whitworth size) hexagon has been mentioned countless times in the past so it certainly doesn't just apply to recent AN barrels although it would be an easy job for them to have corrected the problem by grinding a little more clearance in the area surrounding the nut.
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Visually checked the Blue Point 1/4 Whitworth wrenches I spoke of earlier in this thread, and from the factory the sidewall at the end of the thinnest wrench of the bunch, is about the thickness of U.S. dime.
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I appreciate the tip. If I purchase the Blue-Point 1/4W socket, it will need to be cut down to fit under the nut, then it will require welding to attach a suitable handle; a lot of effort, and I have yet to meet a socket that would yield to a hacksaw or not kill a lot of carbide on a lathe; grinding is slow, but it works. After all that it might not fit.
I have attached a lot of Norton heads and never experienced this issue; I have a Proto 1/4W combination spanner that has never failed to do this job (up until now, of course). I'm going for the sure bet (machine the barrel), more involved, but a fix that will allow virtually any spanner to comfortably manipulate the fastener, as the original design had intended.
I'm sure that the Norton gods are trying to help me learn something, but it sure feels like running on fly paper...
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