Steering wheel removal on a D

[1maidenfan 202]

:woohoo:

Excellent job on the wheel removeal wheeledhorseman

I went out and put diesel on mine and will let it soak for a couple days and try it. Last ditch effort. :confusion-shrug:

[JamesBe1 82]

How hard is it to drill out a roll pin? Are they made from hardened steel?

I have take out a few over the years, and always with a punch set and a lot of swearing. I've thought about drilling them out, but always managed to get them out with a punch before I got that desperate.

[wheeledhorseman 574]

How hard is it to drill out a roll pin? Are they made from hardened steel?

Very much so - all the siezed roll pins I've encountered have been impregnable to drilling. It's where they've been hardened to give them the 'spring' property the keeps them wedged in the hole.

[pfrederi 17,515]

Agreed, they are tough. Have tried the drill idea twice...broke the drill bit both times. Removing the whole assembly and getting the shaft braced against an immovable object, add some witches brew of solvent, then application of a large hammer to a roll pin punch eventually works.

[wheeledhorseman 574]

Returning the thread to its original path for a moment.....

Excellent job on the wheel removeal wheeledhorseman

I went out and put diesel on mine and will let it soak for a couple days and try it. Last ditch effort.

In terms of difficulty there's no way of knowing where on a scale of 1-10 my steering wheel pull was but good luck on this attempt and we're all rouing for you.

James made the observation

I was kinda questioning the use of the washers, but who cares, the steering wheel is off.

The rationale here was basically this. The shaft being hollow is a pain but found an imperial bolt that was a good fit in the hole. The end of the shaft wasn't exactly perfect as a surface for the bolt head to bear on either in terms of machine finish or suface area so the steering wheel nut was brought up flush with the end of the shaft and the two standard mild steel washers used to spread the force applied to both the shaft direct and via the nut evenly. Being mild steel, the washers woud 'give' to any high spots on the end of the shaft or the fact that lining the nut to be flush was done by eye/feel.

The other thing is (and I think it's been mentioned by others before in the context of pulling hubs) too much force on the puller before before the sharp tapping with a hammer can be counter productive. I tightened by hand with a medium-ish length wrench - pretty much as tight as I could get it. The sharp taps worked for me at this stage. I'm sure I could have got it much tighter with a socket and 1/2 drive ratchet but I've noticed in the past that over tightening can make make these things lock up worse than they already are. If mine hadn't started to move at the point it did, I'd have moved on to the cordless impact wrench and only if that failed finally brought in the air line wrench.

I really didn't think it would come off like it did so other things I had at the back of my mind were warming / heating using a hot air gun as a blue wrench is out of the question. I also considered using a freezing spray. I've seen cans of penetrating fluid that incorporate a freezing agent - the theory being that taking rust crystals rapidly down to whatever temp those sprays achieve causes the crystals to fracture into smaller bits aiding the overall process.

Anyway, good luck and let us know how you got on.

Andy

[JamesBe1 82]

Returning the thread to its original path for a moment.....

Excellent job on the wheel removeal wheeledhorseman

I went out and put diesel on mine and will let it soak for a couple days and try it. Last ditch effort.

In terms of difficulty there's no way of knowing where on a scale of 1-10 my steering wheel pull was but good luck on this attempt and we're all rouing for you.

James made the observation

I was kinda questioning the use of the washers, but who cares, the steering wheel is off.

The rationale here was basically this. The shaft being hollow is a pain but found an imperial bolt that was a good fit in the hole. The end of the shaft wasn't exactly perfect as a surface for the bolt head to bear on either in terms of machine finish or suface area so the steering wheel nut was brought up flush with the end of the shaft and the two standard mild steel washers used to spread the force applied to both the shaft direct and via the nut evenly. Being mild steel, the washers woud 'give' to any high spots on the end of the shaft or the fact that lining the nut to be flush was done by eye/feel.

The other thing is (and I think it's been mentioned by others before in the context of pulling hubs) too much force on the puller before before the sharp tapping with a hammer can be counter productive. I tightened by hand with a medium-ish length wrench - pretty much as tight as I could get it. The sharp taps worked for me at this stage. I'm sure I could have got it much tighter with a socket and 1/2 drive ratchet but I've noticed in the past that over tightening can make make these things lock up worse than they already are. If mine hadn't started to move at the point it did, I'd have moved on to the cordless impact wrench and only if that failed finally brought in the air line wrench.

I really didn't think it would come off like it did so other things I had at the back of my mind were warming / heating using a hot air gun as a blue wrench is out of the question. I also considered using a freezing spray. I've seen cans of penetrating fluid that incorporate a freezing agent - the theory being that taking rust crystals rapidly down to whatever temp those sprays achieve causes the crystals to fracture into smaller bits aiding the overall process.

Anyway, good luck and let us know how you got on.

Andy

Ahhhh, now I get it. I should have looked at the enlarged versions of the pics you posted. I mistook the bolt head in the pic for the nut. With that in mind, I wondered why the heck you would go to the trouble of putting washers under it and putting it partially back on. Now that I have looked at the large version of the pic, I can plainly see that it is a bolt, and not the retaining nut.

Now that I see what you did, I think it was an ingenious way to spread out the force. Even better than using a socket on the nut, as your way slightly increases the surface area (the shaft takes part of the force through the bolt, as well as through the nut (via the threads).

Next time I look up 'clever' in the dictionary, I expect to find your picture in the sidebar Andy (maybe also under dysfunctional also)!

[Trouty56 565]

good news Andy!!! I'm at the stage where I can't get the rolled pin out of our c-121.... it's starting to break the wheel

Have you removed the dash assembly? i took a few wheels to work and the maintenance guys got them out lickety split. A little blaster, the right size punch, a small hammer and the pin was on the floor. They partly opened the vise and set the wheel on it then punched the pin through the opening.

[meadowfield 2,570]

good news Andy!!! I'm at the stage where I can't get the rolled pin out of our c-121.... it's starting to break the wheel

Have you removed the dash assembly? i took a few wheels to work and the maintenance guys got them out lickety split. A little blaster, the right size punch, a small hammer and the pin was on the floor. They partly opened the vise and set the wheel on it then punched the pin through the opening.

That's the only way to do it, the wheel and shaft have had a week in the e tank to break the rust down, the pin and shaft have had liberal amounts of oil ! And as I hit the pin with the correct size punch, with it all clamped in the vise, bits of plastic have been shattering off the wheel!!!

....but I sent the wheel off to the southern workshop (my dad and brothers) and it appears they have managed to removed it . I'll find out later....

Mark