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A recent
correspondent on the Austin Friends Forum, John
Kaye had been removing the Crown Wheel and Pinion
from his Ruby with careful reference to The Austin
Seven Manual by Doug Woodrow.
"I have followed
Woodrow (together with the Austin Seven Companion)
and have got the pinion, complete with angular
contact bearings in the housing with the flange
which connects with the differential casing in the
back axle, spacers and roller bearing race still in
situ. I have removed the nut and lockwasher (J on
Woodrow E5-1) so now I should be ready to follow
instruction (2) on Woodrow E5-5. I can't see any
way to support the bearings, other than clamping
the housing vertically in a vice with the flange
resting on the top surface of the jaws. This I have
tried, without the vice being clamped any tighter
than is necessary just to hold the bearing housing,
and then tapped the tapered and threaded end of the
pinion, with gradually increasing severity, to no
avail."
Following this a
number of other forum members suggested they had
similar difficulty in getting off the pinion gear
end bearings, which unfortunately had to be removed
in one go because of the design of the pinion
support used by Austin for the 1930 differential.
After some
discussion, John turned his mind to a neat solution
which took away the brute force often resorted to -
"Thank you all
for your collective deliberations on my behalf and
all your helpful suggestions. In the event I
hatched a cunning plan. I cut a piece of 1/4 inch
thick mild steel plate to approximately the same
size as the flanges and drilled holes in the
corners to take M8 threaded bar, and a hole in the
centre to just fit over threaded (forward) part of
the pinion. £3.50 at our local hardware store
bought four 50cm M8 bars and 16 nuts. These bars
were fitted to the flange and nuts tightened either
side, and also to the steel plate which was fitted
over the end of the pinion. By slowly tightening
the nuts behind the steel plate a quarter turn at a
time the pinion was pushed out of the bearing
housing, leaving the angular contact thrust
bearings in situ. These will stay where they for
the re-assembly with a new pinion. The outer
distance piece and the roller bearing at the end of
the shaft right by the bevel gears came out with
the pinion but I shall not be re-using these anyway
(because of the pinion damage)"
This clever but
simple tool is pictured below:
If the pinion support roller bearing (or ball
bearing in the early differential) is to be removed
as well then another plate could be made similar to
the front plate but with a hole to just clear the
pinion teeth and the exercise repeated using longer
threaded rods.
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