...installing the reverse band. Packed rags all around it and put in the spring, washer, and nut with no trouble. Pulled the rags out to move the low band into position, then dropped the spring for it down the rabbit hole. Dang! So far no luck with the magnet. Anybody want to come over and help me turn the car upside down and shake it?
Steve,
Try using the T-3416 Band Tool to hold the ears together while installing the washer and nut on the end of the shaft.
Dental floss if your friend! I feel you pain. Do you have one of those magnet with the flexible shafts? You could try cranking the motor over, it might compress and spring right back out at you. (Joking) You might try a rag and see if it will pull it around.
I found the zip ties worked just fine. But that's the least of my worries now.
Tie a BIG rag onto one of the magnets that is a very tight fit and then turn the motor over with the crank very slowly and see if you can wipe the spring around to the top. It has worked for me.
Boooo!
I tie dental floss to the each part before attempting to enter the black hole.
MURPHY'S LAWS
1. If anything can go wrong, it will.
2. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.
3. If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
5. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
7. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
8. Mother nature is a bitch.
Steve; I have one of those snake eye video cameras... I could mail it to you Monday if it would help, just pay the insured postage and don't keep it too long. I can't get it out until Monday because I'll be out of town. I don't generally make this kind of offer, nut it may help out.
PM me if you're interested.
Steve,
Before you install the hogs head, I use lock wire looped twice around the band ears tightened so that each band is held firmly against the drums. Push the lock wire down as far as possible to make room so each pedal shaft will nest in. Next, install the hogs head leaving the lock wire in place until you have slid on the spring, locking washer and attached the nuts. After the locking washers/nuts are in place, grab the lock wire with the locking pliers next to where it is twisted and cut the inside end. Slowly pull the lock wire out. It is easy.....you have more room using lock wire to get the spring/washer/nuts in place vice using the T-3415 Band tool.
I have found this method work best for me....I have large hands which do not help in tight spaces like working inside the hogs head. I have tried tie wraps but they break and do not hold as tight compared to lock wire.
Be sure to stuff rags around the drums before installing the hogs head in case you drop something.
ALSO.....VERY IMPORTANT....REMOVE THE RAGS BEFORE INSTALLING THE TRANS. COVER.
Forgetting to remove the rag is not a problem confined to working on your T. A few months ago I was working on upgrading our bathroom. The work included a new floor and a new toilet. When I took the old toilet out I stuffed a rag in the pipe because I knew it would be about 2 days before the floor was ready for installation of the new toilet. Two days later I installed the new toilet. Once everything was in place and hooked up, I gave it its first test flush. As soon as the water started rising in the bowl I knew I had left the rag in the pipe.
I invented a few new adjectives, then took the thing out and retrieved the rag. Fortunately it had not gone too far down the pipe and I was able to snag it with a short sewer snake.
So, as Les says, "REMOVE THE RAG".
YOU DON'T NEED NO STEENKING SPREENGS !
If you use wood band liners.
Let this be a lesson.
Steve, I have a magnet on a heavy aluminum "wire" that bends in any direction. I recently retrieved a cotter pin with it and it will work great for your spring. Let me know if you want me to send you it.
I'll even pay the postage....
Steve, maybe I'm missing something but why don't you pull the hogs head off and this will give you more room to fish it out. Good luck and/or say a little prayer---works for me. Joe
I have no experience changing bands on a LHD car, yet. Nor have I ever changed them with a hogshead which has the short shafts for those "modern" quick change bands.
But I have done many band changes. For what it's worth, when fitting the hogshead I have the springs and adjusting nut and washer already fitted to the shaft but backed off so the nut is only on two or three threads. This saves ever having dropped nuts and washers.
Secondly, in place of Steve's cable ties I use solid copper wire. It is thinner than cable ties and offers less interference when engaging the shafts in the band ears. Being copper, it is soft and can more easily be withdrawn than ordinary wire. And if you do lose a bit it will migrate to the bottom and not get sucked onto a magnet.
Hope this helps.
Allan from down under.
Find out where the spring is inside,mirror light a wire and poke around till you feel/see it.
If you remove the bands the spring might move to where you can see it.
If there's anyone that can get this spring out it's Steve jelf!
Jay: you forgot O'tools observation of Murphy's law and that is Murphy was a @#%!^$ optimist!
2 things: #1 is Joseph is winner winner chicken dinner! Just pull the hogshead man! No one is going to think less of your Model T skills. =)
#2 I have discovered that one of two things happen when an item is dropped into the abyss. Either it didn't actually make it all the way down to the bottom (it may be about halfway stuck between the band and the hogshead). Or, it's all the way at the bottom and that usually means it's way further forward than I expect it to be.
If you are bound and determined to not remove the hogshead then I sincerely wish you good luck and hope it just pops up for you soon - and also recommend enlisting an aid. Sometimes having another person there fighting and cussing with you makes you work on it longer and harder and invariably somebody has a great idea. At least that's what happens whenever I'm working on something and call my dad or he's working on something and calls me.
I don't know where you're at right now Steve but If you haven't cranked it over yet don't. At least I wouldn't. Not without EXTENSIVE poking, prodding mirror-on-a stick looking and magnet fishing. If you jamb that s.o.b. in someplace you'll be pulling the hogs head for sure and I you're like me that's the last thing you're thinking about or want to do. It's in there. Look hard for it. And take the key out of the ign switch too. If your engine doesn't have that little plate near the oil drain you might, out of desperation, drop the oil & feel for it through the drain hole.
I dropped a nut inside one time. I tried everything I could think of to get it out. I finally pulled the hog's head and got it out in just a couple of minutes.
Steve,
If your car has a starter, you can try removing the bendix and starter to view the fly wheel magnets. Turn the car over by hand (with the ignition off!) to see if the spring got picked up by one of the magnets.
I used this trick suggested by Bob Jablonski very successfully when I joined the Model T fishing club after a band nut got away and flew past the rags. Good luck; I hope they are biting!
Steve - Hal has given you the best solution IMHO. This trick has also worked for me. If its any consolation, the spring is the easiest of the 3 (nut, washer) to retrieve. If you have oil in the 'case, drain it. It'll be much easier. I've used one of those parts store telescoping magnets that look like a pen in your shirt pocket. Then I sacrificially bend it to get around the drums. But Hal's idea is better. And I use wire like in your first picture but I wire the 3 band 'ears' instead of the springs. First use a screwdriver to better compress the band (your 1st picture) then slip the pre-wrapped wire over 2 ears of your reverse band. Same with the brake band. You'll have a lot more threads on the pedal shaft that way. Then I favor the right side of the 'rabbit hole' with rags. You seem to favor the left. When the 2 nut/washer assemblies are solidly on I cut the wire with dikes, remove with a needlenose making sure none drops into the transmission.
If all the oil is drained out, you can look down with a flashlight and maybe see it. You can also try the magnet on a flexible wand and also try a wire with a hook bent on the end to snag the spring. Also try to fish for it through the oil drain hole. You won't be able to pull it out through that drain hole, but at least if you can locate it, you might be able to put through a wire with a hook on it long enough to pull the wire out the top. If all else fails pull the hogs head. Sometimes a metallic part catches on one of the magneto magnets and you will need to remove the hogs head to get it out. Sorry that happened. However, worse things have happened to others. It will take some work to get it out, but eventually you will get it.
Norm
Steve: I got a cheap bore scope from Harbor Freight. I have fished a few of those for guys here. Look one up on their web site. Dan
By the way, my Uncle did turn one over and rocked it till it fell out back in the day.
Steve, sorry to hear about your troubles, i just did mine a few weeks ago and it was very nerve-wracking not to drop anything down the black hole of doom!..If you do decide you have to pull off the hogshead again to retrieve the lost spring, i would suggest changing the springs. I bought new ones when i ordered the linings and the difference between the two are pretty amazing. There is at least a 1/2" difference in the two springs and the the feeling in the pedals is pretty dramatic...just my 2 cents..good luck.
Yep, they're new springs. I took a day for other things today, but I'll go spring fishing tomorrow.
Steve, keep in mind, if you stuff that thing full of rags they not only keep things from heading for that deep dark hole, they also hold the bands closed if stuffed in there hard enough. Also, just a hint but I put all three bands in before stuffing the rags. That way you're only going to put the rags in once. And, always use dental floss on every component including the band nut. One last, last thought, as hard as you're looking for that spring now, look for all the rags after you're finished.
Oh, and for what it's worth, though I dropped a spring in my '22 and became physically I'll I found it laying toward the top of the abyss as if it thought it could fit all the way to the bottom.
Another magnet solution. I found the magnet strip that many painters use to stripe with can also find things like nuts and cotter pins in the transmission. I used the magnet strip that is in the refrigerator door seal. It is thin and can slide down into the pan easily as you work it around the transmission. Just another way.
Wow I feel lucky being able to quickly get the cotter pin I dropped in my '12 last year, even WITH the dang thing stuffed with rags! It still managed to find that one tiny opening to flop in. Got my flexible magnet and dang, if I didn't get it in less than a minute! I think the little bugger was still floating on top of the oil, otherwise I'd have been flushing the transmission or even taking it apart.
Now I tie small string or a thin piece of S.S. wire looped through them.
I was supremely lucky. While in town Friday I picked up a flexible stem magnet. This morning I tried it and had the spring out on the first attempt, in less than ten seconds.
So Steve, does this mean you're canceling your call to have us all help you turn the car upside down and shake it?
Seriously, good for you. Gotta get lucky once in a while!!
Steve, you used to be in the sign business. Do you have or have any access to any of that magnetic plastic striping that is used around the perimeter of magnetic signs. that is flexible and may work.
Well done, Steve!
Now, no more parts go near that hole without at least two feet of dental floss tied to them!
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/118802/146154.html?1276884373
Wow, great job Steve. A new must have tool for any T shop. The flex wand magnet. May you always be so lucky.