Universal Joint Clam Shells

Will N

Will N

Well-known member
I was installing U-Joint clam shells yesterday on a bare chassis. I've done it before while the body was on the chassis and it was a miserable job. I thought it would be easier with the body off. It's not! The two vertical bolts are a piece of cake, but the 6 horizontal ones are agonizing. The reason it's such a p.i.t.a. job is that you can't get a socket wrench on either the bolt head or nut. There's not enough clearance between the nut and the bearing retainer for even a thin walled socket to fit, and no room for a socket wrench to fit on the bolt head because its too close to the ****** case. So you have to use crescent wrenches on both the nut and bolt and you can only get about a 1/6 of a turn at a time before the need to reset the wrench. So it takes forever to snug up 1 nut, and then you have 5 more to go! And then you have to install the 6 cotter pins!



That got me thinking, how did Henry do this job on the assembly line? Speed was of the essence, and you couldn't have this one step take up too much time on the line. Did Henry have special wrenches for this?
 
I'm not a Model A guy, but on V8's, Ford used special castle nuts with smaller diameter heads. Using those, you can get a socket on them.

Is that not the case for Model A's?
 
Perhaps that's it. Maybe the repro castle nuts are too thick? The nuts that the vendors sell are 9/16". Maybe a 1/2" nut was used?
 
Will N said:
Perhaps that's it. Maybe the repro castle nuts are too thick? The nuts that the vendors sell are 9/16". Maybe a 1/2" nut was used?
Click to expand...

I don't have one at work with me, but yeah. You really need the smaller diameter nuts for these for the reason you are running into.
 
I have a few sets of original nuts & bolts. Both have 9/16 heads. For jobs like these, whether using originals or repro hardware, I take the time to chase the threads on both the bolts and nuts using tapping fluid as well. This way, when assembling, you can pretty much spin the nuts in place (even with fat fingers, which I have). Yes, it's still a pain not being able to use a socket/ratchet to do final tightening, but at least this will speed some of the process.
 
bobbader said:
I have a few sets of original nuts & bolts. Both have 9/16 heads. For jobs like these, whether using originals or repro hardware, I take the time to chase the threads on both the bolts and nuts using tapping fluid as well. This way, when assembling, you can pretty much spin the nuts in place (even with fat fingers, which I have). Yes, it's still a pain not being able to use a socket/ratchet to do final tightening, but at least this will speed some of the process.
Click to expand...



I still wonder how Ford did it quickly on the assembly line.
 
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