Dapperdan16
Well-Known Member
I have been following this thread. I have to say, from personal experience turning wrenches on stuff for ~25 years, I don't like the cherry red/orange heat idea in a situation like this. The puller you have on there right now is what I would use, and I agree with mitch504 about the washers. Regular washers, even grade 8, are not going to cut it. The washers will just get extruded into the puller H-Beam. All steel acts like a spring, you need to add more inertia to the washers or spacers you use to decrease deflection, you do this by making them thicker. You also have to keep the "tuning fork" portion of the H-Beam puller from splaying apart. If you have thin springy washers in there, when you pound on the puller screw you're not transmitting the shock loading to the adaptor plate in a manner that will break it loose. Much thicker spacers or proper keeper plates, and making sure the bolts threaded into the adapter plate are FULLY engaged in all the threads available is where you need to start. Without having a parts book for this unit to see a cross section, I am making some assumptions on the anatomy of the assembly, I'm going by what I see in your pictures, I could have it way wrong.
I made a mock up of what you're trying to do and rendered out some pictures:
View attachment 154730
View attachment 154731
View attachment 154732
I see that you have nuts and washers on both sides of your H-Beam puller, that seems wrong to me if the H-Beam has a threaded hole in it. If that hole has wiped out threads, or if it is just a thru hole, it makes the puller a bit more cumbersome than it should be.
I personally would not overheat anything here... This is a part that sees vibration and flexure. When you heat steel hot enough, you change the crystalline structure of the steel and you can make it brittle. The adapter plate could become brittle and grenade apart on you at some point in the future.
IMO, moderate heat (map gas torch from Home Depot etc) while keeping a ****ton of torque on that center puller bolt while hammering on the end of said bolt with a steel 6lb sledge should do the job. Again, if your H-Beam is splaying, and your washers/spacer are springy, you're not transmitting the shock loading properly, and it makes it hard to break the pilot press fit free.
Full resolution of the above pics can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/WrmhZ
All I can say is WOW!!!!!! Excellent drawings and write up, thanks a million etd66ss. I am to rushed after work to do it correctly, so I am going to beef up my puller over the weekend and take my time with it. Cmark was already correct about my first little rinky dink puller, I don't want him to be right about the threads stripping out, haha
I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been following the thread and giving imput towards the situation
Danny