Shear Strength

[Longboarder]

Just undoing the flywheel bolts, stupid 7 or 8mm torx, on the spare engine to mount it on a stand. The torx bit has an 11.3mm shaft but it sheared suddenly. I heard the snap at the same time as my head hit the garage wall. That made a goodish bang too and I spent the next five minutes lying on the garage floor before I could get up and get inside. Stopped shaking after half an hour and had a little nap. Headache is settling slowly. I've had the torx bit for years and it's been over 100ft lbs in the past.

Several lessons learned. I was just thinking at the time it snapped that gloves would be good in case it flew off and that would protect the skin on the hands. I always try to give my hands 'flyoff' room. Must remember to give my head some next time. Old tools may fatigue or wear and slip or break. Inspect before extreme use. Always buy the best quality you can afford. (This one was draper, about 20 years old.) Make sure you have somewhere to lie comfortably if you do fall over. (OK this one's not serious.)

Photo shows snapped bit. Looks well made good grain structure, no evidence of previous damage or old cracks. Just one of those unforeseeable things.

 

Nigel

[MarkBzero]

Nigel,

 

Ouch that's gotta hurt, when I was undoing my flywheel bolts the breaker bar broke and my knuckles hit the garage floor at 120mph couldn't use the hand for weeks.

 

Hope you recover soon.

Regards

Mark

[megadodo]

Did a few expletives fly around the garage or were you too stunned? Was it shear bad luck it snapped? I'll get me coat......!

[Les Welsher]

Nigel,

Glad you're ok.

I had a simular thing when undoing the crankshaft bolt to remove the pulley, leaning over the front of the car with my feet securely planted to give required force to shift the bolt when the 19 mm socket split causing my head to fly forward onto the engine lifting eye, had to stay there for a bit till the stars stopped twinkling around my head. ouch..

 

I knew it woudn't last long when you said you had nothing planned for this winter

 

Les

[Guest Chutney]

I'm a landscaper and I have noticed that injuries like this are always the way. Chainsaw- no problem. Stump grinder- injury free. 25kg breaker- suprising lack of danger. Pulling weeds and I send soil flying into my eye, putting me out of action for a good 20 minutes, ( long enough to be laughed at by fellow tradesmen.)

 

I guess accidents are just that, and they obviously happen when you least expect it.

 

Look after yourself Nigel, might have a concussion there.

[Guest Spencer Griffiths]

I found it really usefull to use my airgun and compressor on high torque stuff to loosen the initial pressure. I've also got a really nice pair of Mechanix gloves (too much watching American Hot Rod)which at £20 are not cheap but really good, caught my hand on the grinder last week and just a small anoying rip in the glove rather than a lump out of my hand.

 

Cheers

 

Spencer

[speedtripledan]

The other day working with phil i tripped over his drill with a plaster mixing padal in and face planted into a halogen lamp on the floor worse thing was i knocked over a bucket of water and got soaked into the bargin

didn,t know weather to laugh or cry my elbow still hurts

 

 

*bleep* happens

[fry61]

Even before your "off into the cabbage patch" did you not think from an old fasioned engineers point of veiw that torxs bits,inhex bits; & multispline bits were bad news; the cross sectional area of said bits always appears to be smaller than the bolt shank & are more likely to ruin the head or shear. Good chrome vanadium sockets & ring spanners seldom give before the bolt head. Torx diff.bolt was ruined yesterday so was removed with hammer & chisel & replaced with old fashioned hex, 17mm twisting 10mmthread with a root of 8.5mm gives less head-aches.

[Longboarder]

Absolutely hate them in high torque applications and dissimilar metal situations but Uncle Henry puts them there. I will have to see what Halfords have on the shelf today before I can get the flywheel off. Haven't got an airgun/rattlegun unfortunately.

 

Did I mention it's a stupid dual mass thing weighing in at 30lb or so and costing gazillions of quid to have changed every two years. Now there was an invention designed to do something other than what it said on the tin. A solution looking for a non-existant problem. Why take the driveline compliance out of the driven plate and put it in the flywheel? It is strange as manufacturers hate anything that increases their costs without increasing their profits. Does wonders for garages profits however.

 

Anyway I'm up and about and still in as good working order as I was yesterday so no permanent damage.

 

Nigel

[Guest Stuartl]

Absolutely hate them in high torque applications and dissimilar metal situations but Uncle Henry puts them there. I will have to see what Halfords have on the shelf today before I can get the flywheel off. Haven't got an airgun/rattlegun unfortunately.

 

Did I mention it's a stupid dual mass thing weighing in at 30lb or so and costing gazillions of quid to have changed every two years. Now there was an invention designed to do something other than what it said on the tin. Why take the driveline compliance out of the driven plate and put it in the flywheel? It is strange as manufacturers hate anything that increases their costs without increasing their profits. Does wonders for garages profits however.

 

Anyway I'm up and about and still in as good working order as I was yesterday so no permanent damage.

 

Nigel

 

Its scary what something like a clutch can cost these days isnt it? On my old company car, an 06 reg Passat the clutch went and the will was about £1300! Only lasted 90000 miles too! For that money I would want it to outlive everything else.

 

Good job I wasn't paying

 

I am sure most people on here felt your pain though Nigel, I winced when I read it

[agent_zed]

yep hate torx, i can only assume they are easier on the production line or something.

 

this does remind me of when i was doing some gardening work and filling in a massive hole dug my the owners great dane. The dog was out in the garden and was excited as i was 'playing' its hole and was running backwards and forwards across the garden. I hadn't noticed it getting closer until i bent down to dig and it headbutted me at full pelt!

 

certainly shook me and the dog up for a while. It was normally a nightmare to get it back in its kennel but it just followed me and went inside and lay down. Then i had a sit down for 20mins to recover.

 

glad your ok though.

[Guest mower man]

Torx the invention of the devil!!!!! .Has any body sucsessfully removed a sierra diff filler plug with out 1 ruining the plug 2 breaking or ruining tools [ Imean quality stuff SnapOn ] 3 loosing your rag big style. I had to resort to hammer ,centre pop and hacksaw for 2hours scrounged one from gixer boy but made a mess of it, has any one got a good one for sale? Ithink the only way to stop dissimiler metal corrosion is liberal application of copper grease once you have got it undone mower man

[harvs]

The torx bit has an 11.3mm shaft but it sheared suddenly

 

Wonder if the low temperature contributed to the failure? The only time I've broken a spanner was when it was really cold outside.

 

Glad you're feeling better

[Longboarder]

Replaced the torx bit today. Its a T55. Gave each bolt a belt or two with the trusty 3lb hammer. Bolts came out fine.

The flywheel and pressure-plate weigh in at 15.9Kg, less than I would have guessed but more than I fancy lifting too often. To the Skip go!

Top end of this engine is clean as a whistle and hardly looks run. Cams perfect. Will soon get to see if there are any shims in the followers and if the combustion chambers/valve seats/ports are as crude/unfinished as they are in standard zetecs. Plenty of room for improvement if they are.

Will have a look at the bottom end sometime about January.

 

Nigel

[Les Welsher]

So it looks like a bit of porting and polishing is the winter project to eek out some more power for barkstone then. What about some new cams and a r/road session.