Made some more progress on my floor jack saddle spacer/adapter.
So, to recap a little, what had been accomplished in the last set of pictures was to take a NFG motor casing and turn it into the inner body for a floor jack lift spacer. The last picture from that sequence shows the first collar that I added to the circumference of the casing to make it wider and let the stock saddle sit into position correctly.
From there what has happened is that I have gone ahead and fabricated the outer locating/retaining ring that is designed and intended to keep the saddle from trying to escape or the adapter from walking off the saddle; works either way. What you see is three of the four seqments that, once attached, will make up that ring. At this point they are only secured by a few tacks and a single rose/plug weld through them. you can also see the fourth pocket for the last segment, still to be installed.
The fourth or last segment is shown here, both just after its spacer shim has been attached, again using rose welds, and after it was ground smooth. The three remaining holes are for the plug/rose welds that will secure it to the body of the spacer. The biggest pain to this part was selecting the correct wire speed/heat range that would allow me to attach the thin shim metal strip to the 3/16ths backing metal without burning through the 19 ga shim. Although I might have been able to do without the shims, I decided to go with them to avoid any chance that the segments might pull in during the final welding passes and close the hole down to the point where the saddle would hang up and not fit in freely. They just make things little easier to work with when you are under a vehicle and trying to set the spacer in place.
The fourth segment, vice gripped into place and tweaked into its correct position. Not going to show the whole rigamarole involved in the actual welding; you can't see me for the full lid and breather mask anyway. If you want an image for reference, just think of Darth Vader; even the breathing sounds come close. LOL.
Unless you are actively involved in either process, both welding and grinding/dressing the result tend, from the spectator point of view, to be about half as exciting as watching grass grow. So what you now see is the finished, ground, sanded, shaped and cleaned up spacer/adapter.
Married to the floor jack saddle that is once more sitting on its flange, you can see that, at full lift, I now get around 24" or a hair or two over 2' of total lift from floor to up. This will be about as far as I go at this point as I have to scare up some 1/4 inch flat plate and make a cap for the other end that will accept either a second saddle like the first one, or possibly some kind of tray fixture that matches the specific shape of the crossmember. Gotta give that some more thought......................................
Anyway,
Nick
So, to recap a little, what had been accomplished in the last set of pictures was to take a NFG motor casing and turn it into the inner body for a floor jack lift spacer. The last picture from that sequence shows the first collar that I added to the circumference of the casing to make it wider and let the stock saddle sit into position correctly.
From there what has happened is that I have gone ahead and fabricated the outer locating/retaining ring that is designed and intended to keep the saddle from trying to escape or the adapter from walking off the saddle; works either way. What you see is three of the four seqments that, once attached, will make up that ring. At this point they are only secured by a few tacks and a single rose/plug weld through them. you can also see the fourth pocket for the last segment, still to be installed.
The fourth or last segment is shown here, both just after its spacer shim has been attached, again using rose welds, and after it was ground smooth. The three remaining holes are for the plug/rose welds that will secure it to the body of the spacer. The biggest pain to this part was selecting the correct wire speed/heat range that would allow me to attach the thin shim metal strip to the 3/16ths backing metal without burning through the 19 ga shim. Although I might have been able to do without the shims, I decided to go with them to avoid any chance that the segments might pull in during the final welding passes and close the hole down to the point where the saddle would hang up and not fit in freely. They just make things little easier to work with when you are under a vehicle and trying to set the spacer in place.
The fourth segment, vice gripped into place and tweaked into its correct position. Not going to show the whole rigamarole involved in the actual welding; you can't see me for the full lid and breather mask anyway. If you want an image for reference, just think of Darth Vader; even the breathing sounds come close. LOL.
Unless you are actively involved in either process, both welding and grinding/dressing the result tend, from the spectator point of view, to be about half as exciting as watching grass grow. So what you now see is the finished, ground, sanded, shaped and cleaned up spacer/adapter.
Married to the floor jack saddle that is once more sitting on its flange, you can see that, at full lift, I now get around 24" or a hair or two over 2' of total lift from floor to up. This will be about as far as I go at this point as I have to scare up some 1/4 inch flat plate and make a cap for the other end that will accept either a second saddle like the first one, or possibly some kind of tray fixture that matches the specific shape of the crossmember. Gotta give that some more thought......................................
Anyway,
Nick
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