Custom made shop tools

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89RCLB

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Home made automotive carpet hole cutter. It's made from end of a bent GMT400 jack tool, cut it to a useable length, used a Dremel tool to get an inside edge and finished off the outside edge with the bench grinder. Found a deep 10mm socket and stuck it in the other end, wrapped some gorilla tape around it to join the socket and tool... makes nice, clean holes in carpeting in a few seconds. It will score the floor pan a bit and has to be sharped after a few holes but it works great.
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Pinger

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Another self explanatory tool.
Won't know that works until I start putting it all back together. If it does, I'll mention it on the 'inlet gasket' sticky and reference this post. Got to be better than scribed lines for those of us without a scan tool.



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skylark

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Another self explanatory tool.
Won't know that works until I start putting it all back together. If it does, I'll mention it on the 'inlet gasket' sticky and reference this post. Got to be better than scribed lines for those of us without a scan tool.



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I love high end stuff like this made with CAD (Cardboard Aided Design).
 

HotWheelsBurban

Gotta have 4 doors..... Rawhide, TOTY 2023!
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Another self explanatory tool.
Won't know that works until I start putting it all back together. If it does, I'll mention it on the 'inlet gasket' sticky and reference this post. Got to be better than scribed lines for those of us without a scan tool.



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If it works, I may ask you to send it to me on loan when I do mine! Or at least email me a full scale drawing/ pattern....good luck getting it all back together!
 

HotWheelsBurban

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I wish there was a good way to pin the distributor shaft in place so it doesn't move when you pull it. I've had some ideas, but nothing that I'm sure won't damage something.
Could you use a junk rotor, and drill a hole in it and put a pin in one of the holes in the base?
I haven't looked at the distributor out of the engine, and maybe I am over thinking this whole thing....but it has to get done right and not get messed up. I'm basically in the same position as Pinger, in that my Burb is our only transportation. So no truck, no work, no food, and certainly nothing to go across town to the parts store in!
 

Pinger

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I wish there was a good way to pin the distributor shaft in place so it doesn't move when you pull it. I've had some ideas, but nothing that I'm sure won't damage something.
Could you use a junk rotor, and drill a hole in it and put a pin in one of the holes in the base?
I haven't looked at the distributor out of the engine, and maybe I am over thinking this whole thing....but it has to get done right and not get messed up. I'm basically in the same position as Pinger, in that my Burb is our only transportation. So no truck, no work, no food, and certainly nothing to go across town to the parts store in!

I screwed up removing my dizzy today. Intended pulling it straight out vertically and the shaft only rotating as mush as the skew gear threw it. Except I'd forgotten to detach the electrical connection and the whole thing spun around as I lifted it and the shaft went all over the place.
Put it back in and got the rotor realigned with the body and the body roughly where it should be in relation to the manifold - back to where I'd intended. Hopefully the tool will locate it precisely when I come to do it for real. I also set a pair of vernier calipers between the distributor cap screw hole and the manifold bolt hole on the right as plan B.

If I had to fix the shaft to the body - I'd wrap it with duct/gaffer tape (around the rotor 'arm' and body). As soon as the gears are free, that shaft just spins.
I haven't removed my rotor to know what's under it but did notice the screws. Possibly a rigid fixing between what the screws are fastened to and the body could work. I went the way I did because I didn't trust scribe lines and parallax error.
 

HotWheelsBurban

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I screwed up removing my dizzy today. Intended pulling it straight out vertically and the shaft only rotating as mush as the skew gear threw it. Except I'd forgotten to detach the electrical connection and the whole thing spun around as I lifted it and the shaft went all over the place.
Put it back in and got the rotor realigned with the body and the body roughly where it should be in relation to the manifold - back to where I'd intended. Hopefully the tool will locate it precisely when I come to do it for real. I also set a pair of vernier calipers between the distributor cap screw hole and the manifold bolt hole on the right as plan B.

If I had to fix the shaft to the body - I'd wrap it with duct/gaffer tape (around the rotor 'arm' and body). As soon as the gears are free, that shaft just spins.
I'm going to look at some distributors the next time I go to the wrecking yard. I think if there's enough room on the rotor in the right place, I could put a hole in the rotor and then a long screw or something like that in the hole. Tighten it just enough to hold it in position....maybe I can invent a tool to do this. If it works, I'll post about it with pictures.
But it's gonna be a bit before I get into this project. Brakes and front end need fixing first. That's the problem with old vehicles; there's usually something needs fixing, then when you get everything fixed, it's time for something else to break or wear out.
 

Pinger

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I'm going to look at some distributors the next time I go to the wrecking yard. I think if there's enough room on the rotor in the right place, I could put a hole in the rotor and then a long screw or something like that in the hole. Tighten it just enough to hold it in position....maybe I can invent a tool to do this. If it works, I'll post about it with pictures.

A strap across the two rotor screws (or rotor) brought out, bent 90 degrees downwards, and clamped to the dizzy body might work. The body of the dizzy is plastic - so not the strongest to be working with.
I'll let you know how my tool works next week. Aligning the shaft within the body is easy - a gear tooth out is obvious from a marker pen mark. Providing the body can be re-installed accurately . By everything I've read - there is no overthinking this if a scan tool isn't at hand.

But it's gonna be a bit before I get into this project. Brakes and front end need fixing first. That's the problem with old vehicles; there's usually something needs fixing, then when you get everything fixed, it's time for something else to break or wear out.

Tell me about it!
My inlet gaskets were supposed to be done last year in the summer - but so much other stuff got in the way.
If you are going to change yours - budget plenty time. EGR pipe soaked up time on mine and there's a lot of stuff to move/remove for access. I'm not looking forward to dropping the manifold back in - given it has to go in bang on square to avoid smudging the RTV on the china walls.
 

HotWheelsBurban

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A strap across the two rotor screws (or rotor) brought out, bent 90 degrees downwards, and clamped to the dizzy body might work. The body of the dizzy is plastic - so not the strongest to be working with.
I'll let you know how my tool works next week. Aligning the shaft within the body is easy - a gear tooth out is obvious from a marker pen mark. Providing the body can be re-installed. By everything I've read - there is no overthinking this if a scan tool isn't at hand.



Tell me about it!
My inlet gaskets were supposed to be done last year in the summer - but so much other stuff got in the way.
If you are going to change yours - budget plenty time. EGR pipe soaked up time on mine and there's a lot of stuff to move/remove for access. I'm not looking forward to dropping the manifold back in - given it has to go in bang on square to avoid smudging the RTV on the china walls.
The duct tape idea might work. I'm thinking if the tape isn't super tight, it would let the shaft move as much as it needs to, to come off the cam and out of the hole, but no more than that. More experiments are required though.....Once the chassis stuff is good, then I'll be spending time at the yard to research this.
 
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