Really Big Wrenches

"Kugelblitz" (Kugelblitz) 10/20/2013 at 22:18 • Filed to: None

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This is Ghillie, also known as an M3 halftrack of WW2 vintage. I and a few other codgers spent today diagnosing and replacing her clutch/pressure plate and also removing frozen bolts in her armor plate and replacing them with nice, new frozen bolts to be. Also her left front shock, which is this odd long tie rod and horizontal cylinder affair had been somewhat pretzled from an earlier incident. The tie rod was removed and straightened using a Really Big Hammer, then the mounting lugs were straightened using, I swear, a 3 foot long crescent wrench (adjustable). After some searching, the right shock was discovered to be MIA so now we need to get that assembly from somewhere and bolt that one into place.

Some of the snapped off round headed bolt were punched out with a punch and a nice big ball peen hammer. Her tranny works fine now, and many suspension bits were tightened up.

I must say, whaling on a frozen bolt with a Large Hammer that is attached to a large sheet of bullet proof armor is pretty damn noisy, and viscerally satisfying when it (the bolt not the glacis) finally parts ways with the chassis.

Ramblin Rover - The Vivisector of Solihull > Kugelblitz 10/20/2013 at 22:49

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I love White M3s. I coincidentally was straightening a bent up tie rod as recently as Saturday. Which I then proceeded to break off about 1/2" of tie rod end in due to the rod end ending up bent in a straight tie rod: FML.

As a side note, I've actually used a wrench of fixed size over four feet long. It was a drill stem wrench like in this guy's picture.

Possibly I should say pair of wrenches, since they're not really meant to be used without being in a pair and having the chain lever with them.

Kugelblitz > Ramblin Rover - The Vivisector of Solihull 10/21/2013 at 08:52

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Let me know if you have an extra front shock assembly.

Those are some serious metal wrasslin' wrenches.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 10/21/2013 at 09:02

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Sorry, I wasn't specific, it was a '64 Land-Rover tie rod. Similarity in stuff-to-do-with-tie-rods, not vehicle. I'd have loved to have been working on an M3.