Bushing replacement and fit

bdave_mcc

bdave_mcc

Senior Member
I am wondering what is the most common practice done by the average A'er to ream/fit bushings on their Model A. I cant imagine every guy out there having hundreds of dollars ******* in reamers and such.

Side note, probably 15 years or so ago, i bought new spindles and bushings for my grandfathers Golden Jubilee. At that time i thought something was wrong with the parts i ordered and ended up using a brake cylinder hone to make the bushings fit...that took a while but worked.
 
What is the difference between a reamer and a hone? Is it that a reamer cuts things to the right diameter and a hone uses stone to slowly grind away at the surface?

Mike
 
Having a collection of model A's and being my own mechanic, I bought all of the reamers that Bratton offered in the ninties. Some of these reamers are no longer offered. A lot of the repro parts need a bit of tweaking before they can be used whether they use bushings or not. I bought a set of adjustable reamers for such cases. Buying all of the model A tools is very expensive , especially if you only plan on having one model A. A mechanic is only as good as the tools that he has to work with in many cases. Other times, you get by with what ever tools that you have. at times I've had to get by with rat tail files, brake hones, sand paper wrapped around a wood dowel and other make shift methods.

I don't like to borrow anything and have bought up a fairly large tool collection over the years.
 
To get the best fit I recommend a sunnen pin hone. I'm fairly equipped and have one, but most machine shops if you can find one should have a hone and be able to fit them. It is the best method. The adjustable cutter reamers are OK for home use but aren't as precision fit as honing them... in my opinion.

Larry S.
 
1930 coupe said:
No everybody does not spend hundreds of dollars on tools many spend thousands of dollars on tools. This is just one little corner of my hobby shop.
I thought it was mandatory to have a large workshop before you were approved to buy a model A. :D :)
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Thats part of my problem. I already have thousands ******* in tools from many years at a dealership. Lots of specialty late model tools that may never see the light of day again. Being at a dealership makes it easy to buy any useless tool you want to. Now I only work on cars as a hobby and have the wife monitoring spending. I just cant justify spending hundreds on reamers that i may use once.

I only wish i had the knowledge and experience to do the type of work you have pictured.
 
I also bought all the reamers Bratton's offered in the 1990's and it was a good investment as I use them constantly. The one for the bell housing and pedal bushings is the most beneficial.

Early on I had read a story about how you can hone the bell housing bushings by taking a length of 1\4" wood dowel, split it and insert emery paper into the slit and use it as a hone. After spending half a day honing each side of the bell housing in this manner I was finally able to get the clutch shaft to slip into both sides, but not through both at the same time. In other words the two bushing were not lined up.

Before Walt Bratton produced the reamer for the bell housing, I had a conversation with him. He was initially going to make the reamer about four inches long, which would have been fine for the pedals, but a longer one was needed to ream the bell housing bushings and end up with them in line. He did produce the longer one, but he had the reamer made such that the long side is on the wrong end. It still does the job though because you can guide it to the other bushing and ream it with the reamer shaft through both bushings at the same time.

I think you would run into the same problem of alignment honing the distributor bushings. The reamer I got from Bratton's does a nice job as it goes through both bushings at the same time.

Tom Endy
 
Having a friend that was a model maker with a Full set of tools, ie. lathes, Bridgeport mill, welders and all the miscellaneous equipment is a plus. This was the fellow that did all the machine work on my A at a very reasonable rate. Every bushing that was replaced was reamed undersize then honed to proper dimensions.
 
It's surprising just how many guys in our club have a well equipped machine shop in their garage. I just saw another one last weekend at our tuneup clinic.
 
Tom Endy said:
I also bought all the reamers Bratton's offered in the 1990's and it was a good investment as I use them constantly. The one for the bell housing and pedal bushings is the most beneficial.

Early on I had read a story about how you can hone the bell housing bushings by taking a length of 1\4" wood dowel, split it and insert emery paper into the slit and use it as a hone. After spending half a day honing each side of the bell housing in this manner I was finally able to get the clutch shaft to slip into both sides, but not through both at the same time. In other words the two bushing were not lined up.

Before Walt Bratton produced the reamer for the bell housing, I had a conversation with him. He was initially going to make the reamer about four inches long, which would have been fine for the pedals, but a longer one was needed to ream the bell housing bushings and end up with them in line. He did produce the longer one, but he had the reamer made such that the long side is on the wrong end. It still does the job though because you can guide it to the other bushing and ream it with the reamer shaft through both bushings at the same time.

I think you would run into the same problem of alignment honing the distributor bushings. The reamer I got from Bratton's does a nice job as it goes through both bushings at the same time.

Tom Endy
Click to expand...

I also have the long reamer and have done several bell housing rebuilds with it. I remember we had to wait a while before the distributor reamers were in stock. Before Bratton offered these tools, special for the model A reamers were not available. We just had to get by the best that we could. We had a local machine shop here at the time but they couldn't ream the distributor bushings. They told me to use a brake cylinder hone. Same for the king pin bushings.I have used my reamers to rebuild my collection of model A's I don't use my adjustable reanmers for work that must have perfect tolerance. They do help fit a crank pullet that won't slide over the shaft or a repro clutch arm that doesn't fit. I have an adjustable hone set that I use for fitting wrist pins. Nothing really high tech but we get by well. I've have rebuilt lots of of bell housing assys and brake assys. that I keep on the shelf ready for the next project.

2731121-T400300.jpg
 
I have a modest machine shop,but no sunnen hone or many reamers. I have done good work on bushings using a piece of drill rod to hone bushings with
with time saver abrasive if they are a standard size. I also have used a brake hone with success if they do not need line honed.Here is my shop.

John
 

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