French You Tube Seies

[Anonymous]

Found this quite useful, “Tutoriel Traction #01 Dégripper les freins” on You Tube there are a dozen or more.
Not understanding French I am not going to criticise but it really helped with the front cradle, the silent blocks well ?????

[Anonymous]

Thanks David, they do look like a useful set of videos. Maybe after working through that lot I’ll be able to speak French. The one that shows how to strip the silentblocs shows why recon cradles are available.
Chris

[Anonymous]

The Silent block one I do not understand, they go to all that work but leave the inner of the silent block on the splined shaft Part # 426144.

[attachment=0:35uvzt06]Untitled.png[/attachment:35uvzt06]

You need to get this off to change the silent block.
It took a 30 tonne press and a gas torch remove mine.

[Anonymous]

Hi David,
sorry, delayed response due to work-based distractions.
I take your point. I haven’t done this job so much kudos to you.
I just watched this again. Tutorials 18 and 19 show the more or less the same thing but 18 has english subtitles which I missed first time around.
If you do it the way you did, do I assume you have to push the splined shaft out of both silentbolocks and the arm all at the same time? Or at least out of one of the silentblocks and the arm?
I think their strategy is, having trashed the rubber bits of the silent blocks, by taking the remaining inner parts off one at a time they avoid the need for a 30 ton press and just use their 3 legged puller (and a couple of blow torches and a big breaker bar). This then leaves the splined shaft in the arm which cannot be removed from the cradle – and here is where the subtitles come in for me. They are saying that there is no need to withdraw the splined shaft, because, I guess, it would only need to be pressed back in again. Do the splines wear on that bit? If not, I see their point.

The guys call themselves Sunday Mechanics – do you get the impression they do this in the afternoon after a good lunch?
Chris

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris

Yes we pushed it down through the fwd silent block, the arm and finally the rear silent block.
An article in Volume 36 Issue 4 they try to do this but end up cutting the arms, I think there is another one somewhere in the FP.
There is supposed to be an article of a modified version on Tech Torque by Roger Williams which I cannot find as per Volume 40 issue 1.
If you leave the spline in the arm you will not be able to adjust the disengaged portion of the rear silent block, and its a lot easier/better to clean up and paint.

Just visited several machine shops until I found one with a press and torch willing to listen (apologised for the smell afterwards) the splined shaft was crazy tight.

Dave

[Anonymous]

Hi Dave,
The only article I can find is in volume 36 issue 4 – it’s not by Roger Williams and it seems to be fairly similar to the video – angle grinding in involved. Maybe the Roger Williams piece is in one of the “Correspondence” pieces…
Chris

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris

This is from January/February 2016.
Think the other article may have been in the old Tech Torque, so it should be in the new one but I cannot open it.

TOC TECH
So, the article I mentioned in the last FP is sitting snugly up on the web site and Mick has added a few more from his own web archives.
I’ve now added two more articles to the TOC Tech section on the site. Remember: you go onto the site, click on the Technical Support button, then enter the TOC Tech section to find all these articles.
Here are the abstracts of the two latest pieces to go up on the site.

Article Title:
New improved silent blocs now available for TAs, including the Big 6
Abstract notes by:
Roger Williams
In the rush to get the Traction built certain parts had serious engineering flaws that were not addressed during its 23 year production life and the design of the silent bloc type suspension system is a good example of this. The principle of the design for the Normale/Légère type cars is that a splined pin connects the bottom suspension arm to the front and rear silent blocs that are bolted to the cradle. The splines in the broached tube that are ‘rubbered’ into the silent bloc housing and those in the bottom suspension
arm are parallel but the splined connecting pin is tapered. The splined connecting pin is knocked in from the rear and gets successively tighter as it passes through the bottom suspension arm and into the front silent bloc. The original splined connecting pins were splined over their full length but later there was an undercut section of approx 50mm with no splines where it passed through the bottom suspension arm. This reduced the engagement in the bottom arm by 60%
and caused the broaching at the outer edges of the bottom suspension arm to ‘bell mouth’.

I understand Roger Williams has retired and his son has taken over the business, if I had seen this before I had bought the silent blocks I would have looked into it.

Dave

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