Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

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StanHowe
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Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:37 pm

This has been sitting here for awhile, finally came up in the queue. Been doing OF's all week, making parts and trying to get some done and in the mail. Finally got back to the shop early last week after fall auction season and doing some needed work at the ranch, beat the snowstorm but not the cold here.


So, I got this in along with a sad story some time last fall. Supposed to have been rebuilt, sold on ebay, guy paid quite a bit for it, put it on his car and it would run but absolutely would not idle. It had been a couple months since he bought it so the seller basically said, "Tough Luck," which I can understand. So he sent it to me to fix. Took it apart and there was a broken off Easy Out in the idle jet.

I did all the easy ideas I had, couldn't get it out, can't drill it from the top, couldn't pound it out after drilling a hole to access the bottom of the idle jet, heated it, used the cuss words I save for special occasions, etc., couldn't get it out. So I cut the bottom of the lower end off, got a vice grip on the idle jet and of course it just broke the solder joint. So I cut the side of the carb off around the idle jet, drilled it from the bottom to where I could get a punch in to drive the Easy Out out of the Idle Jet. But the slot in the Idle Jet had been so butchered before the tried using the Easy Out that there was no way to get a grip on it. So I just drilled the Idle Jet out from the bottom with a drill the size of the passage, punched out what was left, re-threaded the passage the jet screws into and now will set it up in my mill, square things up, silver solder on a new piece, drill all the passages so they line up right, shape it so it looks right and put a new Idle Jet in, do the rest of the things that were not "rebuilt" and should have it in the mail to the guy tomorrow.

As usual, this site kicked me off again after I spent a bunch of time typing and trying to attach some photos.

One more try on the photos, I have to get back to work.


Topic author
StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:39 pm

Waste of time!!!!
2020 10 21 OF side cut.jpg
2020 10 21 OF side cut.jpg (26.21 KiB) Viewed 2769 times


Topic author
StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:49 pm

2020 10 21 OF side cut.jpg
2020 10 21 OF side cut.jpg (26.21 KiB) Viewed 2758 times
2020 10 21 OF pieces cut out.jpg
2020 10 21 OF easy out.jpg
2020 10 21 OF easy out.jpg (16.48 KiB) Viewed 2758 times
2020 10 21 OF idle jets.jpg


I made about 20 new idle jets last week, they are almost always damaged or missing.

I fell bad for the guy that sent it to me but I can't warranty somebody else's work or lack of it. There is more to this than wiping them off with an oily rag and painting the throttle control black, which I think is all they did to this one.

This is going to be an expensive OF by the time he gets it back.


Topic author
StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:50 pm

I know I typed fell instead of feel but I had so much trouble posting this I am afraid to try to edit it.

Back to the shop, back to the shop, I just wasted nearly an hour posting this.
Last edited by StanHowe on Thu Oct 22, 2020 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.


Kevin Pharis
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by Kevin Pharis » Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:43 pm

Not that this was a normal situation... but acid can work wonders on a broken tap

https://chemical-supermarket.com/Tap-X- ... -p574.html


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StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Thu Oct 22, 2020 4:15 pm

This wasn't a tap, it was a broken Easy Out down in a hole.

My experience with them is that by the time somebody breaks off an Easy Out they have already ruined the head or slot you need to screw it out with.

The first one of these I did probably took me all afternoon, this is probably the tenth one I've done. It's a couple hours fix at the outside doing it this way.


Kevin Pharis
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by Kevin Pharis » Thu Oct 22, 2020 10:50 pm

StanHowe wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 4:15 pm
This wasn't a tap, it was a broken Easy Out down in a hole.
Drill, tap, ez-out... it’s all just tool steel to me... and the nitric acid😉

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John Warren
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by John Warren » Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:02 am

Stan, you got to do what you got to do! The carburetor was JUNK until you figured out a way to save it. Thanks for sharing. Kevin thanks for sharing, I have had to remove many broken taps,drills and easy outs. This puts another tool in the bag of tricks. One of the ways I have successfully removed such things is to weld on them and use a slide hammer to get them out. The wire feed welders make this process easier. ;)
24-28 TA race car, 26 Canadian touring, 25 Roadster pickup, 14 Roadster, and 11AB Maxwell runabout
Keep it simple and keep a good junk pile if you want to invent something :P


Topic author
StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:48 am

Yeah, I probably could have fooled around for half a day trying to get the broken piece of the easy out removed and still would have had to get the idle jet out. The broken part of the easy out was the size of a toothpick.

This is actually a fairly common problem. Often that is why it is on ebay or for sale at a swap meet. Somebody tried to unscrew the idle jet, stripped the slot, put some cheap piece of crap Chinese easy out in and cranked on it with a crescent wrench, broke it off, had an "oh crap" moment and put the cover plug back in and listed it on ebay or a sale site.

Like I said, I've probably had ten or more of them like this.

It is easy to break off one in the main jet, too.

Also have had a couple "rebuilt by an expert" OX-2s and a few others with a broken easy out in the main jet. They are easier to get out.


Harry Lillo
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by Harry Lillo » Fri Oct 23, 2020 2:07 pm

Kevin,
I an intrigued by the chemical solution to extract a broken tap or ezee-out.
When I looked at the information you provided I found:
"Do not use on substrates of magnesium, high-carbon tool steels,

Chrome-Moly 4130 or 4140, cast iron, brass, bronze, copper alloys

or zinc."
What can it be used on? Doesn't look like you could use it on a brass carburetor?
Has anyone used it? Great idea.
Harry


Kevin Pharis
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by Kevin Pharis » Fri Oct 23, 2020 2:31 pm

I know that this product exists... but have never used it personally. I have used nitric acid baths for the passivation of medical implants tho. And occasionally my crew members would unknowingly load steel tooling parts... and after an hour, not much would come out!

The goal is not to dissolve the tap/drill/ez-out completely, but just enough to loosen it up so that it can be removed more easily. In the case of the carb jet, it probably should have been drilled out as soon as the slot was stripped... but the original rebuilder made one last attempt at the “easy way”. Now with the broken ez-out down in the hole with no way to remove, they made the situation go from bad to worse!

And John is right, the moment the ez-out broke, the carb was junk! So any repair method that yields a usable part, is an acceptable repair method

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aDave
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by aDave » Sat Oct 24, 2020 3:27 pm

Harry,
I was wondering the same thing.

It is good on aluminum...as per the notes:Application Notes:

Tap-X is safe to use on any material substrate with low or no carbon

content. It is particularly effective for removing broken taps from

stainless steel, all titanium alloys, and all the popular aluminum alloys.


Topic author
StanHowe
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Re: Whack em apart, glue em back together, Stromberg OF

Post by StanHowe » Sun Oct 25, 2020 5:29 pm

I would definitely want to do some testing before I dumped it in a brass carburetor .

Plus a lot of the time I don't have time to fool with things. I need to get it done and move on to the next one.

Time is money but some days a lot of time isn't much money. I do all this work on flat fee, if I can do it in an afternoon I'm making money, if it takes me two or three days .... The power bill is still going on.
I tend to stick with what I know I can make work even though I'm probably missing out on some good new methods.

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