Here is a transmission mount for a 1934 Pontiac. That's the only thing it fits also. It is a one year only, one car brand only mount. In 1933, the mount was smaller, and in 1935 it was bigger. This kind of limits the number of customers that might need this particular mount re vulcanized, but as far as I can tell, we are the only company offering this service for this particular vehicle. There is very close to 70 hours of time involved in designing and building this mold.
This is the original as received from the customer. As you can see, the rubber is pretty much turned into jelly from way too many years of being soaked in oil. That is problem number one. What did it originally look like? Problem number two, how does it come apart? Problem number three, how much rubber will be needed to fill the empty space? The answers to all three questions is, I have no idea, but somehow I'll figure it out. This is just one of the many reasons why I love my job.
After burning out what was left of the old oil soaked rubber jelly, I was left with trying to figure out how to get the two parts separated without distorting the steel too badly. The two rounded ears are pretty thick steel, so I very carefully bent them open just enough to get the inner piece out. After I finished cleaning what was left of the old rubber, I had to install that piece again, and bend those ears back to the way they were before.
I started whittling away at a chunk of billet. This mount has quite a few nooks and cranny's that needed to be blocked off in order to keep the new rubber from oozing out. In order for the process of re vulcanizing to work properly, I need to over-fill the mount and be able to build up a total of 25 tons of pressure and not have it squeeze out somewhere. The rest of these pictures is what I came up with to do the job properly. I'm hoping to run this next week sometime, but I have a rather large back-log of other things that I have to get out of the way first. Because I didn't have a brand new mount to make the mold to, I may have a problem when, and if, the next one comes in. Most of the time involved in making this particular mold had to do with file-fitting almost every piece to make the entire thing come together exactly the way I needed it to. The two outter pots will be filled with rubber, then it will be injected thru all those little holes, and hopefully make it's way into the cavity. It would be nice if I could use something like Playdoe to be able to do a simulated dry-run. I sure hope this works.
This is the original as received from the customer. As you can see, the rubber is pretty much turned into jelly from way too many years of being soaked in oil. That is problem number one. What did it originally look like? Problem number two, how does it come apart? Problem number three, how much rubber will be needed to fill the empty space? The answers to all three questions is, I have no idea, but somehow I'll figure it out. This is just one of the many reasons why I love my job.
After burning out what was left of the old oil soaked rubber jelly, I was left with trying to figure out how to get the two parts separated without distorting the steel too badly. The two rounded ears are pretty thick steel, so I very carefully bent them open just enough to get the inner piece out. After I finished cleaning what was left of the old rubber, I had to install that piece again, and bend those ears back to the way they were before.
I started whittling away at a chunk of billet. This mount has quite a few nooks and cranny's that needed to be blocked off in order to keep the new rubber from oozing out. In order for the process of re vulcanizing to work properly, I need to over-fill the mount and be able to build up a total of 25 tons of pressure and not have it squeeze out somewhere. The rest of these pictures is what I came up with to do the job properly. I'm hoping to run this next week sometime, but I have a rather large back-log of other things that I have to get out of the way first. Because I didn't have a brand new mount to make the mold to, I may have a problem when, and if, the next one comes in. Most of the time involved in making this particular mold had to do with file-fitting almost every piece to make the entire thing come together exactly the way I needed it to. The two outter pots will be filled with rubber, then it will be injected thru all those little holes, and hopefully make it's way into the cavity. It would be nice if I could use something like Playdoe to be able to do a simulated dry-run. I sure hope this works.
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