Got the PTO rod out today Yea! Yes, the PTO is out of the rig. I ran the fork to the end of the screw then undid the tension adj hex screw. Of course then the balls started to drop out and I removed the plastic gear and it's rod by removing the 'clip washer' (not sure what it's real name is).
Next was to reattach the rod to the 'fork'. I decided to 1st try the 'heat gun' approach with a 1400 watt industrial type heat gun rated at 800-1000F. I was going to do it outside but decided to use my aluminum darkroom tray that I use under the Cantenna as a 'heat shield'. I placed the rod assembly in a 8" crescent wrench and let the rod stand vertically with the fork sitting on top. This worked OK but the 'fork' was not quite level and needed to be heated a 2nd time to get it closer to the proper 90 degree angle. While I had the heat gun I decided to solder a piece of solder wick braid to the end of the fork. I could not get the solder to flow on the fork by itself so I used my regular small Hakko iron AND the heat gun and got the end of the fork tinned with a small blob of solder, then the braid was put on top and held with the solder iron and gave it another blast with the heat gun. Later I am going to clean off the rest of the old grease and try to reassemble the same way. The dial shaft bits are all still intact and I may want to disassemble it as well, Today's question is: will I be able to get the balls back in without taking the dial shaft apart (same as it came apart for me) or is there a 'Better' way to get the bearing back together. Should I use a drop of new grease or just leave some of the old grease and add a drop of 3in1 oil to it? As far as the re-soldering goes I wonder if the heat changes the iron parts enough to worry about. Will find out I guess.... _______________________________________________ Drakelist mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.zerobeat.net/mailman/listinfo/drakelist
