Raising the Roof - making a tilt cab of a Karrier Bantam

John D. Like that idea! Probably half a dozen old two inch balls kicking around here! Where the original cups used to sit only a 5/8" hole so will dig one out and try it, added benefit of self locating as well as self locking! Let you know how it goes, also dont have to machine up polyurethane bushes, can buy flat plate direct from Repco, bought some with centre hole already punched out last Jeep I did with spring suspension. Thanks, Dave.

I workkkkkked in the forklift tyre industry in Sydney before moving uo and one product we had made was bonding polyurethane onto the pallet truck wheels plus certain size forklift tyres were done as well. These were what they called a 'cold pour' meaning that they were not injected into a mould to make the finished size and shape but the hubs were centred in a tube then the poly poured into the tubes and then heated to cure.
Next day or so they all had to go into the lathe for machining. No freezing required b ut what they used was 1/4" square HSS tooling with a rounded front edge and with a relief raking back towards the bottom of the HSS. On high speed the poly came off like a constant stream of spaghetti. I have also seen rubber machined the same way.
Have a quick search on YouTube for more tips but I dont see any reason to freeze it but that wont hurt the poly anyway. Not sure of the hardness of the poly you are machining but there are a minimum of 3 that I remember. 50-55 which is very soft, 68-72 which we used the most for tyre wear and then 95 which is almost as hard as nylon. There was another one softer than the 50-55 but only saw it a couple of times and it would wobble almost like jelly.

Thanks Cobba, From memory the grade of poly I bought was a 62. I bought a length of about 18 inches X about 2&1/2 inch diameter, left over from some job the supplier was doing. He reckons for what I wanted to do, it was the most suitable. He also threw in about six inches of a harder type 92, yellow in colour, said its a lot easier to work with on the lathe. Ideal for making large diameter spacer washers and such. All up, sixty bucks. Cheers, Dave

Tried that freezing the poly overnight, does work, but doesn't give you a great deal of time to work it, maybe do it over a cupla days. Dave

Back when we were playing with the stuff colour did not determine the hardness but some manufacturers may well use the same colour for a certain "Shaw A" hardness. We did make some of the real soft things up and used yellow dye for that, we used red for the 90 and blue on our 68-72, this also made it very easy for us to identify our product as opposed to others who never use blue poly.

There's a mob from Campbellfield (Vic) called "Plasticut", spoke to them this arvo, they can supply and cut donuts and spacers in varying grades of polyurethane, as well as blocks. See what prices they come up with, although I'd like to have a go at making them myself, even the donuts only have a 10mm taper on the ends, bit of ginning around but can be shaped on high speed rotation with of all things, a coarse wood rasp, finishing off with a fine metal file.
Biggest problem is my lathe is really only a hobby type, only has a 50mm centre. And, it doest like being bored down the guts with a 5/8" drill bit. But OK if you just take it going up a few sizes at a time. Funny thing, although the shaping works well on high speed, the slower the better when centre boring the holes.
Dave_64

Dave, your photos are great, as to why they do t load right I don't know, but I do know it relates to the way you took the photo, if you had your phone sideways it will show up here sideways UNLESS......
You have to open the photo in Office or whatever, change the rotation , save the change and close office or what ever, then, sometimes they will pop in rightway up. Otherwise, save them upside down and plonk them in here. I have mucked about for hours to get some right. I can't help your at the moment as I only have a tablet with me and it is unhelpful, except for spelling. It uses its own language and dictionary. Now back to the donuts.....

Wahoo, got one turned.

Yes the pics are laying down or arse up because of the way the phone was held. Happens to me all the time. Even after I load them onto the puta then rotate and save them if I post them they fall over again.
Usually holding my phone horizontally they come out right and if I hold it vertically they fall over, or do
I have that back to front.

wrote:

Hello Dave, saw a TK Bedford some years ago that had been converted to a tilt cab, He used trailer couplings on the cab and 50mm balls on the chassis to lock the cab down.Some may remember this truck around Sydney fitted with 671 GM and carted hot mix.

Dave nice work you're doing.

I remember looking at that Bedford and thinking, what a great setup. Unfortuantely I can not find a better pic



Bottom right hand side of pic.

Tilt cab Bedford.