Spent a couple weekends helping John Steele go through the Jumbo Planator out of the Detour Deluxe. Differential rebuilt -- new ring and pinon, bronze thrust washers, better carrier, new axles, etc., I machined new bushings for the Planator, fixed a couple little things, installed safety hubs in the outboard sleeve bosses, etc., etc. Should be good to go. Shifts nice, gears mesh nice, John is happy, he's going to install it and go for a drive this weekend.
John is pretty fastidious about how things are done. Worse than me, even. Look at this Cotter pin.
When you two get done and educated I have one for a T and one in a TT chassis that need redone!
Do you have any more pictures of the inner working parts of the Planator?
"Eighty per cent of the gears standard Ford parts" it said in the advertising, I'm curious if/how a set of extra differential gears were locked to create a 2:1 intermediate gear?
It's interesting that the photo of the Jumbo Planator is actually of the Starr Planator design with only two pinion gears and a different shifter than the Jumbo has.
We didn't take hardly any photos, I never really thought of it until we were about done. I do have photos of the Starr Planators that I'm rebuilding for a guy in Texas. It's a pretty ingenious design. They cut the driveshaft, added an axle gear to the driveshaft on the front end, used a set of T pinion gears running in a brass case and a special gear that would mesh with the pinions to lock it up via a dog clutch. Very simple and cheap to manufacture compared to a Ruckstell.
It works pretty well, I've driven John's pickup and it works fine.
Rodger I have pictures of the Jumbo parts but don't know how to put them on my IPad. I will download them on my computer at the office tomorrow and try and post them.
Here is a picture of the Starr Planator assembled on the main shaft. The Jumbo version of this must be a little newer, it has an improved shift mechanism and a stronger pinion gear setup. I'm doing two Starr Planators for a guy in Texas, had quite a time finding hard 9/16ths shaft for the pinion gears. Finally ended up paying $96 for a three foot piece of shaft. Might take awhile to use it up.
They are pretty well built, not a lot to go wrong with them. I thought I had a bunch of pictures but can't seem to find what I thought I had, when I get a chance I'll line it up on the bench and take some shots to show how it goes together and how it works. John's Jumbo was in much better condition than the ones I'm working on, I already have quite a bit of machine time invested in these, will have more before I'm done. I'm making every bearing from stock except for two, honing the inside of all the dog clutches and sliding gears etc., to clean them up and then machining bushings to fit. I'll have to make a new shift yoke for one of them, the old one has been cobbled together too many times. I'm starting from scratch on the main shafts with a new driveshaft and will have to cut all the keyways, splines, etc. to get it all together and working. I'm also modifying them to accept modern pinion bearings, moving the unit ahead with a spacer to give room for the lock ring, etc. One of these will go in a 12 rivet for a 14 roadster and one for a 26. Good thing he's in no hurry for them.
John will post more pics on this thread to show how his looked inside.
John D, we are good to go on them. Send lots of money along with them. There are NO parts available for them. Lots of machine time. =)
This is the Jumbo Planator, it is slightly different than the Star.
Stan and Buck's smiley faces before we started.
One Babbit bearing was in pieces and probably had been for a while because it was much thicker than the one that was still intact. Good way to have a wreck around here.
Thanks Stan & John, now I think I understand how it works
Neat! Good to see something different being restored.
John,
I guess that you did not burn up Stan's battery charger after all! LOL
Paul, new battery charger should arrive at the end of this week
Did you get it installed today, John? I was gonna come help but I'm buried in carburetors. I have two that need to be in the mail tomorrow and I'm still engineering the needle and seat in one. Got it figured out, just need to machine it and install it. It's for a 1907 K Ford. My last design didn't work so good. I think I finally got that Buffalo carb figured out. Made some new pieces for it today. And yesterday. Two long days working on it. Tomorrow, too.
Paul, John has not mentioned the battery charger for awhile. "Burned up" Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I've got lots of battery chargers, I'm just glad it didn't burn down his garage. There's stuff in there I want to buy at his estate auction. =)
Stan as in all good sales a list is sent out to prospective buyers. Can you put up a flyer so us out of town'rs can decide if the trip will be worth it.......
Jerry, John is considerably younger and healthier than I am, he'll be sending out a flyer for mine before I'll be sending one for his. But he does have a lot of stuff. Good stuff. Fine and rare stuff. Mine is mostly just stuff. His is STUFF!!!