GS Special Tools

wheelnut

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Fellow Frogger
Tadpole
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Nov 4, 2015
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Central Coast NSW
I got the courage to take on renovating a rundown GS from the many posts on Aussiefrogs from folks who had been through the process, or who were still engaged. Now that Gaston this hopefully "completed" , I thought I would do a post on some of the special tools that I made/adapted during the course of my work on the car, to show how easy it is to produce what is necessary, and show that you don't need to spend a fortune to work on these cars.

I have a couple of pictures below, and I'll describe the bits. The one I haven't photographed is the strut I used to support the bonnet while taking out the engine. I'm not keen to remove car bonnets, because they are large and difficult to handle anyway, but inevitably some paint gets chipped during the period they are stored somewhere in the shed. By using a 25 mm square timber strut 87 cm long, you can hold up the bonnet by inserting it into the hole at the front of the left side chassis outrigger and a hole in the lateral brace in the centre of the bonnet. This gives you enough angle to get engine hoist in and avoids the need to remove the bonnet.

I like to lift the car quite high So that I can roll around from side to side while working under it. Jacking from the centre point on the side sills has the nose hanging down once you get the car elevated, so I made a jacking brace to go under the front subframe to change the way in which I lift the car. I now Jack first from the centre of the Sill, and put a fairly high jack stand at the back and a stand at the front at the height it sits then. I Then use use my jacking brace to Jack from the front under the subframe between the control arms , to get it high enough to match the Jack stand at the back. I then lift the jack stands at the front sill corners to match the rear. I made this brace out of 50 x 50 mm square tube, with end plates 675 mm apart to lock into the outside edge of the subframe.

The lump of wood in my photograph is used to support and Jack the gearbox when removing only the engine . If you take out the engine and gearbox together, this piece is not necessary, but if you are just lifting the engine itself, you need to support the gearbox in a way where the clutch cable end and its retainer won't get crushed by the jack. The critical dimensions of this part are gaps 70 mm wide and 30 mm deep so that it braces on the ribs of the gearbox but doesn't press on the clutch cable.

The hose clamp with the plastic insert was my piston ring compressor. I put the pistons on the conrods, and then slid the barrels over the rings and into position. This tool was made using the plastic from a Jalna yoghurt pot. It is important that it is a Jalna pot, because that has thick walls with parallel sides, where all the other yoghurt or any other pots that Denise gets are tapered. It also has a very highly polished plastic finish on the inside which helps to slide over the piston rings. The hose clamp needs to be 75 mm to 90 mm range so that you can get it on and compress the rings adequately. The plastic part needs to be 30 mm wide. I couldn't find a hose clip that would cover all three piston rings, but the Jalna plastic insert was strong enough to apply the necessary pressure and cover all three rings.

The "socket with wings " was used to screw in the ring nut used to retain the front wheel bearings in the hubs. It started life as a a 24 mm socket with slots cut into it to fit the shank of an obsolete imperial drop forged spanner, brazed into place. It was important to use the drop forged spanner for the strength to get to the 350 ft/lbs torque setting for those nuts. The critical dimension of this is half inch drive in the socket, and 92 mm in width.. It is important to make sure that the wings are squared off to engage with the dogs in the ring nut.

I made the collar to press the new bearings into the hub by using the outer race of one of the bearings I had removed. I merely brazed a piece of thick wall 2S mm square tube to the bearing race and then used that in the press.

The drill bit with the masking tape on it was my take on a clutch plates centring tool. It worked perfectly. The critical thing is that the shaft needs to fit exactly into the spigot bush with no movement , In this case 12 mm, and the masking tape is then wound around it to a diameter of about 16 mm. At that, the clutch plate presses onto the tape firmly so that there is no movement in the shank within the spigot bush, nor in the clutch plate on the tape, so you can then happily tighten down the pressure plate and easily engage the gearbox input shaft into the clutch when you put the motor back in.

The tool on the lower left was the piece I made to spin the oil pump to get oil pressure up before I started the motor. When I put the motor back in and first turned it over, I could not get oil pressure because there was an air lock in the oil pump. By taking off the left side timing belt, inserting this little tool into the holes in the oil pump pulley, and driving it with an electric drill, I had oil Pressure up in about 30 seconds. The critical dimensions of this are the outside of the U section which goes into the holes in the pulley is 77 mm, and the lugs that insert into the holes is 25 mm. I put a layer of masking tape over mine so that there was not a metal to metal pressure as I drove the pump.

The rubber hose with a spark plug on the end of it is old mechanics trick to insert spark plugs into orifices that are a little bit difficult to reach (ie most overhead cam engines). In this case it is fuel hose with a 5 mm inside diameter. This presses onto the screw fitting at the top of the plug, and allows you to insert the plug into its hole and wind it into position without risking cross threading it.

The bent spanners in the last photo came from frustration in trying to do up nuts and bolts in awkward positions with the engine in the car. The smaller one is 11 mm, cranked off to about 45° to reach the exhaust clamp nuts where the Y piece goes onto the front exhaust pipe, and the bigger spanner is 17 mm, bent twice at about 45 degrees to be able to tighten up the engine mounting bolts. You can fit these bolts while engine is out without this spanner, but if you're installing new engine mounts while the engine still in the car this modified spanner is perfect for the job.

While I write this a bit tongue in cheek, and filling in time in my Covid incarceration, I can assure you that all these bits work and made my life a lot easier in getting Gaston renovated. I'm sure there are lots of other modifications to achieve the same result, but if you don't have those, try these.

Cheers. Ian.
 

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