home made shop tools etc?

[Keith Seymore]

As promised, some pictures of homemade tools from my Dad's collection;

I mentioned he was a diemaker at Chevrolet for 26 of his 35 years with GM, so he had access to any kind of machinery or help imaginable. As a result he/they made a lot of tools that were either not available in the marketplace, or just because they could make them for free rather than having to purchase them.

I hit the "mother lode" yesterday - Here are a few I found while I was unpacking:

Homemade tubing bender, for bending 1/2" fuel lines -



This is a good one. It doesn't look like much, but it is made from a turned down cap screw. The small end fits into a connecting rod (piston end) and you swing the rod past the weight on the crank. This is either to (a) ensure you have adequate clearance or (b) use as a fixture to grind the crank weight until clearance is acheived. I've done this at least a couple times.




Homemade tool for pushing the rear axle pinion yoke off the pinion gear shaft (for those stubborn applications) -
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Fixture that emulates the bolt pattern of the exhaust side of a Chevy Big Block cylinder head, for use in fabricating header tubes -

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Pretty simplistic but still counts: a Drift pin for aligning bolts; I use this one for lining up suspension bolt holes for rear upper and lower control arm attachments -



Homemade tool that keeps the flywheel from turning while torquing attaching bolts/torque convertor bolts/harmonic balancer bolts or installation. The beveled edge is placed in the ring gear teeth and it rotates until stopped by the bellhousing alignment pin or some other feature on the block/trans:




Valve spring compressor for use when the cylinder head is installed on the engine. The cylinder is filled with compressed air and the locks can be removed to repair a seal, or replace/shim the valve spring -




To be honest, I'm not sure what these are for. They were in the tool kit with all the rear end set-up tools. One of them looks like it might be for holding the pinion yoke to keep it from turning:



Homemade bearing/seal installer (fits front wheel "dust cups" too, I believe) -



Homemade slide hammer, for removing the rear axle ring gear/carrier after the caps are removed (for Pontiacs, which are a press fit) -




This is the tool for checking pinion depth when setting up a rear axle. The round portions are held in the carrier saddle and then a depth gage is placed on the flat. The flat is machined to match the rear axle shaft centerline and the depth is measured from there to the rear face of the pinion gear (for Pontiac) -
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These are used to keep the pinion yoke from rotating, while torquing or removing the pinion nut and/or crushing the crush sleeve. The fork portion is bolted into the yoke, and then a piece of pipe is inserted over the end -



Not sure what this is, either, but it was in with the rear axle tools and too cool to pass up -



Homemade drift pin/punch, for whatever -




I know there's more up at Mom's house, like a homemade camshaft degree wheel that's about 2 feet in diameter (made before they were commercially available). I'll shoot some pics the next time I'm up there.

K

[ETsC10]

Keep them coming!!

When I worked for Boeing, I had a whole drawer devoted to my
own fixtures for things I needed to do ... if there was not
the right tool made or it was too much trouble to ask for the
right tool to use just one time (in their opinion).
...so I made my own.

Your Dad did the same. and now more people can benefit.

The wealth of information your dad gave you so you could even
identify these tools is astounding!

Please continue...I'm lovin' this thread!

[theastronaut]

I needed a tubing roller a few years ago when buildig a Targa top for a 1978 Camaro. I didn't want to pay what Eastwood or similar companies were wanting for a roller so I built this one. It's adjustable for different size tubing and has a bottle jack for tension on one of the outside rollers. I wanted the outside to push up instead of the inside wheel pushing down like most rollers are; this way the tubing curls up instead of down towards the ground. If you're making long, broad curves, the tubing will hit the ground if the roller curves the metal downward, mine doesn't have that problem.









Here's my homemade air drier. Used a dorm fridge, a 5 gallon bucket, and 20 feet of copper tubing coiled inside the bucket. It has a water trap on the outlet side and quick release fittings so it can be unhooked and moved easily.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by ETsC10

The wealth of information your dad gave you so you could even
identify these tools is astounding!

Please continue...I'm lovin' this thread!

I have used, and continue to use, most of these; but you are right - I certainly appreciate both the knowledge and the hardware that my dad passed to me.

Here's a few more:

The aforementioned homemade cam degree wheel:



This is a homemade stand, used to hold a burette (like you might see in science class) while cc'ing cylinder heads:



And, these are PVC pipe construction but are slipped over axle shafts during storage, to keep them from getting coated with dirt and fuzz:

[Keith Seymore]

Found a couple more.

This is a spacer, used as a fixture for widening a steel wheel.







The length of the spacer corresponds to the final wheel width.

We used to widen wheels by preserving the front half (thereby keeping the dimensional integrity between the wheel spider and the front face of the rim) and by cutting the back portion off the wheel.

A new back portion, from a different wheel and with an additional 2", would then be fixtured to the front face/spider, using this spacer as a checking fixture.

A small plate was affixed in four locations, allowing for minute adjustments of the donor portion. Once the radial and lateral runout are within spec then the two halves can be welded together.




Here is a finished sample, a 10" Corvette rally with the front spacing preserved and the 2" added to the rear.