MTFCA Forum

I know this is a topic that has been discussed frequently on this forum. I am gearing up to remove the hogshead to install new kevlar bands and would like to do some restoration while an at it and I also need to charge the mag (hopefully in the car). I have read about many procedures of sealing shafts and I think o-rings or modern seals might be my ticket as the shaft journals are still tight. Can someone tell me what tooling to use to chamfer the cams to receive the o-ring. I believe someone mentioned using a 1" ball mill. Any help from all you geniuses is always enjoyed and thoroughly appreciated by this youngster.

Oh...also can anyone tell me what rivets to put back in the shafts on reassembly?

On the old forum, Steve posted a photo of Mike Bender working his hogshead for o-rings. Maybe he'll chime in.

If you are replacing the pedal shafts, that is fairly straight forward, the parts vendors can supply the correct rivets.
Now for the low pedal cam inside the hogshead, when you place that low pedal shaft, be sure to support the hogshead when riveting, you only want pressure on the rivet, not on the cast iron or the pedal shaft.
You can find milling cutters to bevel the inside of the pedal cams that mount outside the hogshead, or just use a ball type grinder stone, in your hand grinder. You only need a little bevel to have the O-ring fit loosely but not crushed and binding on the shaft.

Here is a link within a link from the 2010 Forum.

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/11 ... 1282796998

I concur with Dan that O-Rings will work. If you have access to a mill, then lip seals will work better, as the amount of "crush" that an o-ring requires is a designed and controlled value. Chamfering and squishing will work, but there is no control of the "squish" and thus, life of o-ring and effectivity of the seal can vary considerably.

Lip seals require fitting with a counter bore and a mill...not necessarily a job for everyone, but like I said earlier, is a good controlled seal. Additionally, with a seal, you can do low shaft from the outside and not have to worry about starving the bushing of oil like if an o-ring is placed inside the hogs head.

A very large word of caution: Replacing the low speed shaft is not as straight forward as it looks or is advertised. The last one I did, had the rivet holes 1/4" too close to each other. This results in the low shaft pedal prematurely bottoming out on the housing boss...well before full throw is achieved...there was much more "cam" left inside and much more throw to go when it bottomed out. I sincerely believe that owners have installed these and blamed everything else under the sun for band and drum failures with the dreaded Kxxxxx bands.

If you are interested in what the tooling looks like to install lip seals, PM me and I should be able to supply.

FWIW

I use a 45 degree chamfering or beveling reamer in a 1/2" variable speed drill on the inside of each mating surfaces of the hogs head and the cam block and simply jam the O-ring in the space because the shafts do not make full revolutions but simply move back and forth in an arc. Haven't had to replace one yet.

Scott could you explain how I could check that indescrepency in the low pedal shaft as I did replace mine with one from the vendors. Thanks

A machinist friend made these for me.

Mine was a .005" oversize shaft, if that makes any difference in manufacture(s)

I discovered (with hog's head off) that the inside edge of the base of the pedal's casting would hit the outside boss of the hog's head when the inside cam was only about 1/2 way engaged. You never want the entire cam to be used up, but total physical travel of the pedal sans band should not be limited to 1/2 of the pedal's potential throw on a new cam. I cannot remember the "throw" but I recall that my other 3 cars could slide the shaft "in", let's say...5/8". In other words, the band could be made to constrict a considerable distance. With the new shaft, the slide motion was only about 1/2" before the pedal would bottom out hard, so the potential "squeeze" on the low band would be greatly diminished relative to all my other cars. I then compared the distance between the cam's drilled hole vs the pedal's drilled hole (for the rivets) and found the new shaft had the cam hole at least .090" closer to the pedal hole. In the first photo you can see where I put a dowel pin through both "cam" holes to establish a "zero" datum, then measured the distance from the center of those holes to the center of the pedal hole. In the second photo, you can see that the new shaft is "shorter" than the old one. This can manifest itself in real problems.

I have always felt that there were users who THOUGHT their low band was cinched down tight under load (Must be! I can't push any harder, and the pedal isn't to the floor!!) when in fact the pedal shaft had simply run out of travel and was hard up against the hog's head and the band was NOT tight on the drum like they thought. That certainly would have been the case on this car with this shaft.

To check an assembled part, I'd take the transmission cover off, adjust bands to where the pedal locks bands just prior to pedal being at floorboard height, and then look at outside of hog's head and ENSURE that there is still room for the shaft to move inboard more, and is NOT hard up against the hog's head. Then adjust pedal to wherever you believe is appropriate (for me it is just as described above), and push HARD on low pedal and again make sure you still have POTENTIAL for the pedal shaft to move in more, if the band wears and the pedal travel has to increase.

With the shaft I had, I would have had to run the low band too tight, to still get full engagement before my pedal travel ran out. I suspect this is the source of some of the famous complaints about some band material. I welded up the hole, moved it over and redrilled. I believe that the ".005" O/S shaft is in fact 16mm shafting and I didn't want to buy a new raw shaft, pay shipping and turn it and drill it when I already had a new part that was 60%+ there.

FWIW

Bob

I remember when you originally posted these photos. My caution regarding doing this is that the cams "seek their proper place" under the mating pedal cam and they often ride off center to the pedal (the cams end up where they want to be relative to the pedal ramps, but that is not always centered on the generous through-hole in the cam), which would throw the seals off center. Lip seals are not tolerant of this sort of misalignment. I am not saying your set up doesn't work! But I am cautioning that it will not ALWAYS work, depending on any one car's make-up.

Restoring Hogs Head Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVahNWCelbM
Restoring Hogs Head Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHbR4W5ksc8

Hi Scott,
You mentioned that you may have tooling available for machining recesses in hogsheads for lip type seals. I have the number for the readily available seals. I think I sent a PM to you last evening but not sure that worked. I have several aluminum and cast iron hogsheads for my own projects that would likely benefit. Thanks, Mike

The guy that rebuilt my engine and transmission added a grease fitting to the hogs head for the low pedal shaft. Since oil wouldn't be getting there because of the o-rings he added at all the cams. It might be something you should consider.

I’ve got about $1k invested in tooling to rebuild transmission covers correctly, and it gets done on a Bridgeport mill with a digital readout. Usually winds up being 10-16 hours work plus materials. The biggest problem I’ve found is that only about half the iron covers are acceptable for rebuilding due to casting and machining errors. Even the “good” covers generally have shaft bores that are .020” or more off center from where they are supposed to be, so each bore needs to be indicated in separately. The low and clutch shafts can be sealed 100%, but the reverse and brake shafts require a small hole to be drilled in the upper steel part of the seal so they will leak enough oil to lubricate the external cams, but not leak so much to be noticeable. There are also issues with the new cams, particularly the low speed cam & notch. They require modification and hand fitting in order to get a correct fit.

Beautiful work Adam.

Beautiful work Adam! I guess my next question is...how much do you charge?

The trouble I see with putting seals in the cams is that they are bolted to the outside of the hogs head, there is no seal between them and the HH so the oil can just flow between the two. I use the O rings so they are in the HH. Last time I installed bushing, I just drilled to size and pressed them in. Maybe they were off a few thousands but straight. I really don't think that would be an issue anyway. I am NOT knocking being able to set up on a milling machine and doing it that way.

Thank you Scott, very in-depth explanation. I too installed the lip seals in the pedal cams same as Bob did however Mark I left them protruding out slightly so they would seal against the outside of the hogs head. Thinking about what Scott said about the centering of the seals and it makes sense, this is my first T resto, when I get it running I will post how the seals worked out

That is really very nice special machining work on those custom seals, that is very good work.


For my home garage tools, the simple method was to just modify the brake and reverse pedal supports, #3436, and the low speed #3442 pedal support mounted inside the hogshead.


The results have been OK, no slurpy drips of oil from the outside of the low pedal shaft, and rather none from the reverse or brake too. Seems to me lots of oil is around the hogshead anyway, those shafts are getting enough lube to never bind or get stiff.

Think these simple O-rings fitted on a NEW pedal shaft, and using NEW pedal supports that have been grooved or countersunk only on the support for the O-ring to be sandwiched to the hogshead is just the ticket. Slather a dab of silicone paste on the O-ring when sliding it on the new shaft, for pre-lube too.

Only Ford part modified is the pedal supports, and those are normally replaceable anyway

Yea what Dan said