Why You shouldn't rush things...

Sometimes I astound myself with my own stupidity...

If you are up to date with my blog you will recall that I am the proud owner of two rear wishbone ties.

The first one, which I got with the donor axles, was missing the inner bushes.  I used this part as a practice piece for powder coating and as a result, the finish wasn't that great.

The second one, which I got as a replacement, came with the full complement of bushes.  The powder coat finish that I achieved on this part was far better than that of the first tie.

However, it turned out that the first tie was the correct part for my rear axle set-up.  

So my first thought was that I was going to have to re-coat the original wishbone tie, which was going to be a bit of a pain to have to try and strip off the iffy powder coat and get back to bare metal.

Then I had the lightning bolt moment!  Of course, all I had to do was press the inner bushes out of the second wishbone tie.  Then I would have a tie that fitted my rear axle and had a decent finish. Simples!!

Cue another job that should have taken 5 minutes, actually took most of the day and, in this instance, ended in disaster...

Firstly the inner bushes stubbornly refused to budge from the second wishbone tie.  I think I must have almost reached the maximum capacity on my 10-tonne press.  The frame was shaking and the jack was crying hydraulic oil but despite several cycles of loading and unloading the bushes did not even move so much as a millimetre.

A trip to Screwfix to buy a 30mm holesaw for my drill followed, in an attempt to drill out the centre of the bush.  Even this plan of attack was slightly thwarted.  The inner bushes on the wishbone tie are actually 3 sleeves of steel with a rubber sandwich between each.  The resulting thickness of the rubber was thinner than the thickness of the holesaw.  So rather than just cutting through the rubber to allow the inner metal sleeve to be removed, the holesaw had to chew its way through the middle metal sleeve.  This took forever as the saw kept catching and jamming on the end of the metal.  

Eventually, I did manage to work my through the whole of one of the bushes and extract the centre core.  Then all I had to do was gently cut through the outer steel sleeve left in the wishbone housing with a hacksaw and then tap the remains of the bush out. What could go wrong?

Well, two things went wrong.

1) Firstly, rather than secure the wishbone tie in a proper vice, I clamped it into my trusty workmate.  My workmate sits in the corner of my garage; the dark and dimly lit corner.  The constant jamming of the holesaw when trying to drill the bush out kept shaking the tie loose in the workmate.  So I kept tightening it up, tighter and tighter...It was only when I had finished hacksawing out the outer sleeve that I realised that I had not been clamping the wishbone tie by the central (solid) part but on one of the flanges.  My constant tightening of the workbench had distorted the flange inwards.  I tried bending it gently back out and although it straightened out of sorts, it actually bent back from just above the point where the flange was welded onto the main body of the tie.  As a result, I was concerned that the metal had torn slightly above the weld line, rather than bent back to shape (if shape was the right word since the flange still looked quite distorted).

Distinctly "S"-shaped flange - and that was after trying to bend it back...

2) Secondly, my frustration over the whole exercise taking far longer than it should have, resulted in some further carelessness when hacksawing through the outer sleeve.  Rather than set-up a work light to see what I was doing properly I attempted the sawing operation in the aforementioned dark and dim corner of the garage.  After completing the cutting and the outer sleeve popping out onto the floor with a reassuring ping, I released the wishbone tie from the workbench and took it outside to examine my handiwork in a better light.  Of course, I spotted the bent flange at this point but also that I had been too enthusiastic with the hacksaw.  Not only had I cut through the outer sleeve but had managed to cut a sizeable slot into the wishbone tie itself.  

Bush removed - remains of the middle sleeve after operation holesaw on LHS

One inner bush removed.  Looking good...

...except for the addition of a small crack inducer into a highly loaded part...

While I am no mechanical expert, I know enough to realise that the wishbone tie is a highly loaded part of the rear suspension since it is one of the main components transferring the load from the rear suspension into the chassis.  My actions had rendered my spare wishbone tie junk, with a weakened flange and a rather effective crack inducer added to point at which the tie connects to the chassis.

My son has a particular phrase that he used to describe my actions - but I'm not going to repeat it...

So the lesson for today is - even when things are not going to plan, don't rush, take your time and don't cut corners.  It's back to Plan A for me and attempting to re-coat the first wishbone tie...