9E Gearbox Sprocket Removal

[IanCordes]

Whitehillbilly. Yes, if only I had a 3/4W ring spanner instead of an open-ended one, this job may well be simpler!

A lot of fuss over undoing a nut eh?

Ian

[John Wakefield]

Ian
Worth having a look in at your local car boot sale. Lots of good quality spanners (and other tools) turn up there from house clearances etc. You can probably pick a 3/4 whit ring spanner up for 50p

[IanCordes]

John. I am sure you are right. Certainly at autojumbles. Unfortunately I can't spare the time to look for one spanner. I can buy a 33mm deep socket in the local motor factors; a bit more than 50p though! I think the cranked nature of a ring spanner may not shift this blighter. We shall see. I anticipate posting up a triumphant picture of the liberated sprocket in due course.

Ian

[anglian man]

Hi Ian
I just use 3/4 ring spanner and have done many of them most other things have been covered,I don't know how to put pictures up on here but my chain is welded to a large metal hook when engine is in cradle it hooks round there, best done with engine in bike hook round bottom frame rail.
If yours is this difficult why not split it,sharp chisel or dremel only thin and replace it, if you can't get one I could fix you up with one.

[IanCordes]

Anglian Man, thank you for your kind offer. I had considered splitting it early on, but would prefer to undo it as it should be done. Having said that......

[John Wakefield]

I have made up a locking tool for gearbox spockets in the shed this morning out of an old chain and some scrap metal I had to hand.
You cant have too many tools in the box

[Brian Catt]

That looks just like an oil filter wrench....must check the pitch on mine.

[John Wakefield]

That looks just like an oil filter wrench....must check the pitch on mine.

Oil filter wrenches are the same design but use cycle chain. I used 1/2 x 5/16 chain on this one but its easy to change it for smaller or larger size. The oil filter wrenches only have a short handle. Mine is 12 inches

[IanCordes]

Looks good John, but there is no way one could hold that in one hand and turn the spanner with the other, and hope to get this particular nut undone!

Anyway, result! I wrapped a short length of chain around the sprocket, attaching it to the engine cradle immediately behind the sprocket; as short as it can get. Despite getting massive leverage, it still would not budge. At that point I decided to sacrifice the nut in order to avoid risking more damage elsewhere, so I split the nut, and off it came.

Whitehillbilly gets the cigar; threadlocker was the culprit. I don't know which, but once I cleaned it out of the threads, a spare nut spun on by hand no problem.

Here it is with shiny new sprocket in place.

Many thanks.

Ian

[Colin Sparrow]

Just shows how effective thread locker is, doesn't it? in some applications that's good to know.

And also why it's better to rely on tab washers or whatever if you do want to be able to undo the nut at some point.

Interesting tale, Ian.

[IanCordes]

Colin, you are right, it is good to know how effective threadlocker can be, although not in this application!

According to my manual, there is no tab washer. There is a Belville-type washer, a dished spring washer, in effect. A tab washer would need to be purpose made so that it located into the splines of the shaft on the inside; which would ideally require it to be pre-bent, although it could be punched in situ; leaving the outer tab to be folded up in the normal way.

However, the dished spring washer is augmented by the little cheese-head set screw which is screwed into the best of the 2 threaded holes in the sprocket, which should render it impossible for the nut to come undone.

Thus, the current arrangement should work fine, and I believe does, without the need for Loctite.

It had me cursing for a couple of days, that's for sure!

Ian

[Colin Sparrow]

I covered myself by saying "or whatever"...

[whitehillbillies]

Good work.

whitehillbilly

[John Pattinson]

Tab Washer

Tab washer was supplied with small trials sprockets because there is no room for lock screw.

[IanCordes]

John. That is handy to know. I have just looked on VS website and spotted them, as an aftermarket item, hence they don't show in the Villiers parts books; not mine, anyway. I may hold back on rebuilding the drive side until I get one, although mine is a roadster, so maybe doesn't need it. I imagine it would be used instead of the dished washer.

Ian