Lathe help needed.....

[1FATGMC]

   

Hope someone can give me some advice on this.  In the above picture is a Datsun halfshaft I've taken apart.  It is going to be used on the lakester.  I want to shorten the inner shaft an inch or so.  It is hard, real hard, so I can't use my regular lathe tools to do this.

I'm going to mount a cutoff wheel on my cross-slide of the lathe and use that to do the machine work with the half shaft turning in the lathe.

I have two chocies for the cut off wheel.  I could either use my 4 inche grinder with a cut off wheel or use my normal cutoff wheel in my air die grinder.  Any thoughts on which would be better?

Also what speed do I want the lathe turning while I'm doing this?  My lathe will go down to 60 rpm and I'm thinking of starting there.  The OD of the piece is a little over an inch.

   

So what I need to do is cut the end down on the end so I can still use the retainer for the balls and the snap ring to hold it onto the shaft.  I was going to cut all of this first while holding it in the 4 jaw and the live center at the back.  After I have my cuts for the retainer and snap ring I'll cut the end off with the cutoff wheel out of the lathe.

I'll cover the ways on the lathe and as much of the rest of it that I can while doing this to help with keeping the lathe clean.

Thanks,

Sum

[GPster]

I've got a machine shop around the corner that built transmissions for a guy that sells them for pulling tractors (the guy used one behind his Allison). They would fab up a case and align the bores for the bearings and assemble them ( they used a combination of 14 wheeler transmission gears). There was some gears and shafts that needed modified and the would send them to a heat treater to have them neutralized (?) and after the machining was done the would go back to be re-heat treated. Maybe if you ask around you can go this way. It may not need to be as hard as it is.It's not like you'll be trying to "burn rubber". GPster

[1FATGMC]

I've got a machine shop around the corner that built transmissions for a guy that sells them for pulling tractors (the guy used one behind his Allison). They would fab up a case and align the bores for the bearings and assemble them ( they used a combination of 14 wheeler transmission gears). There was some gears and shafts that needed modified and the would send them to a heat treater to have them neutralized (?) and after the machining was done the would go back to be re-heat treated. Maybe if you ask around you can go this way. It may not need to be as hard as it is.It's not like you'll be trying to "burn rubber". GPster

Thanks Joe, problem is the only thing near here are a bunch of canyons  :cry: .

Anyway I got it done.  I used the electric grinder hose clamped to a piece of angle in the tool holder on the cross slide with a fresh 1/4 X 4 inch wheel to rought it in close.  Then I put a 1/16 inch cutoff wheel in the grinder and finished it off and used the same wheel to put the groove in for the snap ring.  After I finished that I used the cutoff wheel to cut it off 1 inch from the end.

I'll try and get pictures added to the lakester construction pages tomorrow or Monday.

c ya, Sum

[GPster]

I used the electric grinder hose clamped to a piece of angle in the tool holder on the cross slide with a fresh 1/4 X 4 inch wheel to rought it in close.  

This is also a way that I have seen them work. One of their loacl accounts is the local crusher/chipper. Ive seen them work on the chipper blade holder by clamping it in the chuck of the lathe and clamping their diegrinder in the tool stand but I didn't ask any questions so I had no knowledge to transfer. Lots of stories there but you have to ask because they don't brag about anything. GPster

[1FATGMC]

 

Joe here is a picture as I was working on it and the rest of the pictures and what I did are ( HERE ) .

Thanks for the suggestions,

Sum

[Jbird]

I was having a similar problem shortening the Tbird IRS axles for Ugbugly. Carbide bits would burn up as soon as they started actually cutting. A friend gave me two, eleven dollar, ceramic bits to try. It took a bunch of cutting pressure and the chips came off in a long blue curly que but it worked. The ceramic bits wouldn't have worked for you though, they can't handle an interrupted cut at all.

Nice looking result Sum. Now if you can just keep that little aluminum shim out of your mind as you fly through the measured mile....
 Jbird

[Pope Downunder]

 

Joe here is a picture as I was working on it and the rest of the pictures and what I did are

Thanks for the suggestions,

Sum

Thanks for posting this tip; hot rod ingenuity at its best.

[Leon]

Wow!   I just spent some time looking at your website and I like the progress you've made.  It looks real good, can't wait to see the finished product.