Mystery Tool

[v8s4me]

Does anyone know what this is?



If you wind in the tommy-bar the a tapered part inside pushes the ball bearings out.

[Turn7]

Some kind of hub puller I reckon, but the pics not that big...

[LarJammer]

Its incomplete is what it is. How big, 5 inches or 5 feet? My guess is part of a clutch alignment tool.

[v8s4me]

LarJammer said:

Its incomplete is what it is. How big, 5 inches or 5 feet? My guess is part of a clutch alignment tool.

With all due respect, if you're guessing as to what it is, how do you know it's incomplete?

It's about 120mm long.

[E-bmw]

It is for swaging a flare into metal pipe to allow a hose clip to grip the hose onto the flare & not blow off.

ETA.
There are 2 different steps as it can do 2 different sizes of pipe.

Can you measure the diameter of the 2 steps?

Edited by E-bmw on Tuesday 2nd July 10:09

[227bhp]

E-bmw said:

It is for swaging a flare into metal pipe to allow a hose clip to grip the hose onto the flare & not blow off.

ETA.
There are 2 different steps as it can do 2 different sizes of pipe.

Can you measure the diameter of the 2 steps?

How do you turn it once it's in?

[E-bmw]

227bhp said:

E-bmw said:

It is for swaging a flare into metal pipe to allow a hose clip to grip the hose onto the flare & not blow off.

ETA.
There are 2 different steps as it can do 2 different sizes of pipe.

Can you measure the diameter of the 2 steps?

How do you turn it once it's in?

Can't see on that pic, but there is normally a set of "flats" on it for a spanner.

[v8s4me]

The balls could be for expanding a tube as suggested but there are no flats for on the tool for a spanner, so I'm not sure how it could be turned to create the swage. I'll post up a better photo later with some measurements.

[E-bmw]

100% that is what the tool is for, if it is only expected to be used on ally/copper then small bights on the adjuster would still be possible, I have seen them before & that is what it is, although it may not be the best quality/design.

[v8s4me]

Here's some better photos...







The "step" diameters are 25mm & 29mm, these diameters increase to 32mm & 35.5mm when the balls are pushed out.

The swager suggestion makes sense, unless anyone else has a better answer. Perhaps the tommy-bar is used to turn the tool to create the swage once the balls have extended fully? I'll find some thin wall alloy tube and try it out.

Thanks to all.

[Turn7]

Much better pics, and Im also on the side of the swager option......

[v8s4me]

E-bmw said:

It is for swaging a flare into metal pipe to allow a hose clip to grip the hose onto the flare & not blow off....

Give that man a cigar!

[227bhp]

Well done
I was imagining once you've wound the balls out it'll dig in and get stuck, but evidently it works, a handy little tool if you're doing a few pipes of that diameter.

[v8s4me]

227bhp said:

...I was imagining once you've wound the balls out it'll dig in and get stuck, but evidently it works, .....

That's exactly what I thought, completely ignoring the fact that they are ball bearings and so of course they rotate allowing the tool to turn inside the tube. Clever eh?

Yet another tool to go into the "that will be useful one day drawer"

[GreenV8S]

Once4 you've screwed the wedge in far enough, does the thread bottom out and enable you to use the same T handle to turn the whole contraption?

[v8s4me]

It does and it doesn't need that much effort.

[OnTheEdge]

I'm not convinced that was the tools original purpose, though it seems to work quite well.

My grandfather had a very similar tool (though only one row of balls (IIRC) at his engineering business which I was fascinated with as a nipper, and it was a specialised tool for removing flywheel or pulley from a specific machine. The balls engaged with a machined groove in the hub and the part that projects out of the end pushed against the shaft the pulley was mounted on.

[GreenV8S]

The two sets of balls makes it seem less likely this is some sort of puller and more likely that it is designed as a pipe swager supporting two different pipe sizes. Presumably it's imperial, so that would be 1" and 1 1/8", or something like that.

[227bhp]

The puller theory falls flat when you consider that the balls go out at a rate which is directly linked to the shaft poking out the end. So you put it in, wind the balls out and the screw thread stops. What then? The shaft won't go out any further to push the bearing out.

[v8s4me]

I've cleaned it up now and stamped on the side is 1” x 1¼” so I think that confirms it as a pipe swager rather than a puller of some sort.
Anyhow, as it does the swaging job so effectively it's hard to see how it could be any thing else.

Thanks to all.