MAKER
Fire It Up
Running repairs on the fleet
With the busyness of the break winding down I was looking forward to some planned time off for make major progress on projects and renovations. Commence local flooding. It has been raining quite solidly over December and January here; so much so, that parts of the state are experiencing flooding. We have been fortunate enough to not endure any direct affects though surrounding bridges, roads & low-lying property experienced damage and some services were cut for a time.
My wife is back at work so it has been Daddy Daycare for a couple of days while waters receded and services come back on-line. This put the kibosh on house renos and projects; but we found things to keep ourselves busy.
Trucks are the current obsession. In particular; fire trucks. A couple of the new engines added to the fleet at Christmas had already broken down, requiring some running repairs. Bring ’em on down to Daddy’s Small Engines & Mechanical. So, what are we looking at here?
Yep, got some real extension ladder issues there mate. Do-able; but not gonna be cheap.
Both trucks incidentally had problems with the ladders. Out of the box, the closer wooden truck, had a poxy, plastic banana type plug. This was supposed to mate the ladder to the truck, while allowing it to spin. It pushed into the hole ok but as soon as the ladder was touched, it came straight out. The rear truck had a snapped plastic shaft that tied the ladder to the lifting ram. During inspection the shaft that coupled the ladder to the turret also snapped. Great.
We could certainly shrug shoulders here and leave them as is. The wooden ladder an annoyance, the plastic ladder breaking irreparably; then just dump them. But that disposable mentality just doesn’t sit right with me. The fixes are relatively easy and safe for smaller hands to be a part of; so there’s no reason not to. Let’s inspect the damage.
And they say that it works perfectly when showing to the repair man.
The wooden one is the easiest so we’ll start there. That banana plug must come out. Using pliers to pull and twist just snapped off the exposed end. This leaves the inner inserted plug stuck inside the top. Simplest way to attack a plastic plug stuck, here or in a wall etc, is to partially drive a screw in, then use this as gripping point for leverage to remove. Pop! Out it comes.
Now to fit something a little more suitable for this coupling. This has to rigidly fix to the ladder, couple to the truck while allowing rotation and be robust enough to take the play (punishment). The truck and ladder are made from ply and MDF, so a dowel works perfectly here. The existing holes are drilled out to suit; firm fit for glued ladder end and slightly sloppy fit in the truck. Then add glue and knock dowel home.
We very much enjoyed tapping the dowel in with the mallet.
Attention was starting to wear a little thin at this point so dad’s going the second repair alone. That’s fine, as there’s a more involved with this one. Let’s bring engine 000 back in to see what we’re looking at.
Things are looking a bit grim on the ladder front there. The only thing keeping the ladder attached to the truck is the little squirt hose; which would have about 60 seconds more life if we started playing with this thing at full noise as is. There’s a fair bit of resistance in the rams that hold the ladder. I expect this is the reason the plastic pins had such a short life as they both snapped at the split end from the shear force. I had some stainless-steel screws and threaded rod in captivity which would suit nicely. They’re marginally larger in diameter than the existing holes, so first thing to do is ream them all with the correct drill bit.
This makes for a nice fit. The threaded rod was actually exactly the right length but the bolt was slightly too long. Knocking several threads off with a hacksaw brought it up to spec. Now we’re ready to throw some nuts at it and we’re done; almost. Using a standard nut isn’t going to cut the mustard here. A single standard nut doesn’t do up tight on its own; it requires the compressive resistance of an opposing surface.
The surface in this case being plastic and requiring some degree of freedom to move means it can’t just be cinched tighter and tighter, as this will damage the truck. Leaving it just finger-tight will definitely allow the nut to come loose over time; not a lot of time either. Leaving us back where we started.
There are two easy ways to overcome this issue; back a second nut onto the first, or use a nyloc nut.
Doubling the nut is a pretty common practice. The second nut is often called a ‘jam nut’, as it is literally jamming the thread captured by each nut together; hence no movement.
A nyloc nut on the other hand, comprises a single nut with a nylon collar at one end that increases friction on the thread. The first use instance actually taps the thread into the nylon collar.
A jam nut setup is getting rather bulky so more appropriate here is the nyloc option. This will result in only one nut thickness when assembled, and by finishing the thread inside the nylon collar, it is very safe for little hands to rub against. So what’s that look like?
Nice, neat & ready for action
This was an enjoyable quick fix that saved at least one of the toys from being scrap. While Walker Jr was probably a little young to appreciate the process, he was certainly pleased with the outcome. The job also only paid in hugs and crisp high-fives; so I guess it’s lucky that those are legal tender at the shop.
Both units re-join the fleet for deployment at the next playmergency.
Kind Regards,
Walker
January 2021
