On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:59:12 -0800, Tim Wescott
wrote:

Just to show that real metalworking discussion happens on this group,
I'm happy to report that I took a pulley off a power steering pump today
-- after much too much time.

Problem:

Swap-meet pump has brackets that don't fit, and a stud that some @#$%
gorilla has apparently torched off. I spent about a year being
discouraged by the whole project, thinking I was going to have to build
brackets. All this so that I can announce to the world that I'm a wimp
who needs power steering.

(SWMBO says "power steering is a must". Doesn't she know that armstrong
steering is manly? Doesn't she care? What does she mean she's 5' 2"
and can barely reach the pedals -- doesn't she know that power steering
on a '63 Suburban isn't ORIGINAL**???)

But I was visiting my brother's storage shop a while back, and noticed
that one of the old Chevy small blocks that he keeps for rebuildable
cores has just exactly the right brackets to fit on the 327 that's in
the old Suburban that I'm restoring. "Hey Karl -- can I have that there
piece of junk that's hanging off your old engine*". The pulley's
obviously been bent in a collision, but the bracketry -- ooh, hold me back.

But I hit a snag. After happily bringing home the Pump That Will Fit
The Engine, and assessing the situation, I decide I need to swap
pulleys. I can't just put the swap meet pump into the good brackets
because of the former owner, gorilla mechanic. So the pulleys have to
be swapped. I'm encouraged by the fact that the poor old swap meet pump
has a pulley that comes right off, no problem -- but then I try the
Other One. Crap. Not only is it bent, but it's stuck and stuck good.
What to do? RCM to the rescue!

Solution:

So, penetrating oil, bang lightly with a hammer (until I bung up the
threads a bit -- oops, better stop now), more oil, try a gear puller
(wow, those pulleys sure do bend easily!). Finally get around to the
real deal today -- hit the pulley hub with a rosebud.

I had to get that frigging thing up to heat almost to the point where it
glowed. And I expected that it'd just go "BANG!" and toss my gear
puller halfway across the room from relieved tension. Oh no. Put on
the rosebud, get it up to heat -- "tick, tick". Put rosebud on other
side "tick, tick, tick". Tighten gear puller, repeat -- half a dozen
@#$% times. Finally it's off, and the gear puller does _not_ win the
unintentionally self-propelled tool distance award.

Gunner will yawn, and say that he has to do that at least once a week,
and sometimes he has far worse to contend with. I'm sure he does -- but
this was irritating enough for me.

Anyway, now I have a power steering pump that'll fit my engine, and a
crank pulley. Since the steering box is already on***, that means that
I just have to figure out how to get hoses built, and I'll have power
steering! Yay! Too bad the rest of the truck is a disaster****.

Group involvement:

All the times that someone said "Use Kroil, and if that doesn't work,
bang on it, and if that doesn't work heat it up good an hot". All of
which I knew, of course, but some people need the repetition to actually
go out and do something.

* Bargaining tip #1. Never, ever, look at something, say WHOA! THAT'S
WHAT I NEED! and fall on the floor foaming at the mouth. Even if the
owner is your brother. _Especially_ if the owner is _my_ brother.
"I'll take that smelly piece of **** off your hands for free, Karl." is
always the right approach to take with him.

** Alas, she knows that a 327 with a 4 barrel isn't original, either.

*** And that's a saga in itself -- there's a kit for that, whose
directions I followed and whose templates I trustingly used -- only to
find that it puts the box at the wrong angle; So toss _that_ POS, and
just keep the steering shaft adapter. Not all unworkable crap comes
from China!

**** The former owner -- the one who put in the 327, the Volkwagen van
seats, and the radiator from god only knows what, was obviously
convinced that he was a mechanical genius. I'm not so sure of that.

You did good. And you learned a valuable lesson. That the longest road
is conquered with a single step..and then another..and another...

There are many many others here that make me look like a babe in the
woods mechanically. They have done it for so many years that its
natural to them. Im hardly a mechanical genius. Like you..Ive had to
learn each trick, step and method to do something. And like you, Ive
been fortunate enough to pay attention to the Smart People here and read
each and every post over the years. And some of it stuck!!

Keep on learning how to do stuff. Crom knows I pick up a trick every
time I log onto RCM.

Gunner

--

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
Robert A. Heinlein