Making/improvising Special Tools

I just machined mine out of a piece of bar stock. Took about 15 minutes.

 

show off..

 

I make things as I need them nothing like what I've seen in this thread though lots of good stuff. Damper rod holding tools out of a properly sized nut and a few pieces of all thread plus my welder. Yoke holding tool out of some scrap plate and tube. When I was rebuilding my T150 and Dana 20 I made arbors for the countershafts using different sized pieces of wooden dowel. Just got a piece that was close and sanded it down to fit properly. Worked great. D30 seal driver/puller out of all thread, nuts and washers.

I don't mind buying a HF tool and modding it as needed.

 

My big 30 cfm. air compressor kept making huge amounts of water condensate in the tank. In my southern humid climate I would get about a pint or more of water per hour from the automatic tank drain. The tank would get so hot you could feel the heat coming off it from 2 feet away, and you certainly could not touch it. There was still so much moisture coming thru to my sand blast cabinet the media would clot and plug my nozzle constantly. If it didn't plug it would blow out water with the media and wet what ever I was trying to blast. The cabinet would fill with fog from the hot moist air and mix with my media, what a mess.
So what to do? I tried adding some moisture trap/filters (2 of them) in my air lines, helped a bit but not alot. Then tried making myself an air cooler out of some copper tubing with drains at the bottom loops, helped some but still got water on long blasting episodes. Would need to stop every 20 min or so to drain all the filters. I was looking for an extra tank of some kind to run the air thru to cool it when my neighbour replaced his outdoor AC compressor/condenser unit at his workshop. He gave me the old unit. (1st photo) I thought humm- possible air cooler.
So I removed the old compressor unit. The condenser and fan were fine. Also said factory pressure tested to 300 psi on decal.
I found the condenser is made up of 6 separate or individual cooling coils so I made an inlet manifold to connect all 6 of the individual cooling coil inlets together. Then another manifold to combine all the outlets of the 6 individual cooling coils- with a water seperator at the exit end. Now I could have a dedicated inlet manifold and a dedicated outlet manifold for connection to my compressor (2nd photo).
I connected the air compressor directly to my inlet manifold and then my outlet manifold/water separator line back to the air compressor tank thus cooling and dehumidifying the compressed air before entering the tank(3rd photo).
On testing I found it works great with most (about 80-90 percent) of the moisture being removed as the air exits my cooler at the dedicated auto drain water separator. The remainder is removed at the tank drain and subsequence inline dryers. The compressor tank temp went down from what I guess was about 180+ degrees to room temperature.
The total cost of project was around 75 dollars as I had on hand the pipe fittings, copper tubing, and hydraulic hoses, only purchased a 30 amp breaker (220 volt) to run the fan and a few fittings. I placed the unit on some old chair casters so to move around more easily. (4th photo) completed unit.
Just my 2 cents worth, thought this might help someone with similar problems.
Ok, what do you all think? Comments, suggestions, I can even stand some criticism if I have to.
Jim

 

Genius.

 

A+

 

Now that's -pretty dang cool, no pun intended. Also great use of recycling existing components.

 

X2

 

Here are some improvised bike tools I’ve made.

I own a chain whip, but needed a second one to remove a specific brand of bicycle freewheel. I was going to add a hook to the end so I can easily hang it on the side of my bike stand, but then realized if I shaped the hook correctly, it would double as a bottle opener.

I cut some material off the end of a small piece of c channel to make a suntour free hub tool

and a piece of rebar welded to a bent piece of metal to make a disc brake piston spreader.

 

I think I'm going to have to do this same conversion of an A/C condenser. Great idea!
-Donny

 

If I can help let me know. I have done some research on the subject and found that there are a lot of different types of ac condensers out there. Some will work better than others.

 

Made a Pitman arm puller using some scrap metal and a large bolt I had laying around. Pulled off my pitman like butter

 

Nobody wants a buttery pitman.

 

Not as epic as ol fogies but... tada!

20210502_193333 by Joe with a jeep, on Flickr

Good ol HF never pump (actually still worked but never fast enough) pump removed, mr T added, then regular hose couplings but there is a check valve at the Male fitting:

KLN-52831
Air Compressor Components, Inline Check Valve - 1/4"F NPT to 1/4" M NPT
(Mfr. #: 52831)

so all I do is plug and unplug. No leaks no mess no sorry thumb from holding the Schrader valves and bikes /soccer balls don't stand a chance.
Also when working on the house I can run the air line to this as a surge tank and use the air nailer with 100' of hose.

And if I ever put the York in the jeep I have a portable tank for using tools and such.

 

What do you use to install the rear seal on a D-18? I read some where the seals can be installed using PVC pipe. Does anyone have details? A better idea?

 

yes pvc pipe works great

 

Simply Brilliant engineering, Sir. I'm saving your entire tutorial for future reference. Thank You.

 

Thankyou, After using it somewhat I have learned that it works very well. I have discovered that it it also capable of cooling more air than necessary even with my compressor producing 30 plus Cu.Ft. per minute. My cooling unit takes up quit a bit of space in my shop. If I had it to do over I would have looked for a smaller AC condenser unit, maybe a 1 ton unit or less. Also I would search out different brands of AC units. It appears some of them use metric copper tubing that is difficult to find fittings and adapters for. I did work around this but it was somewhat harder than if I had a unit with standard size tubing.
If you should decide to build one let me know and I can help with my learning experiences. Jim

 

In my toolbox I have a stepped swaging mandrel for re-sizing copper tube. Basically flares it out to whatever next-size-up that you need. Might work.