Early Center Arm: What am I dealing with? (1 Viewer)

[Nothinghead]

I went out with my early center arm rebuild kit that I got from @cruiseroutfit and ran into a couple of issues.

Firstly, I failed to notice the mangled threads on the top of the center shaft and promptly stripped out my M16 castle nut. For this, I just need to find another nut and re-cut the threads.

Next, I noticed the nut on the bottom of the center arm shaft was loose, didn't have a cotter pin and was 4-5 threads from being able to even get a cotter pin in place:

Removing the nut, I have four parts that I don't see on the FSM diagram:

The bigger nut has threads but does not thread onto anything.
Were these washers and oversized nut added as spacers?

With these removed, I am unable to get the center arm apart. Heat and BFH haven't worked. Is there more that needs to be removed before I can get it apart? I guess I should get a puller?

FSM diagram:

Is my center arm shaft nut (#10 in the diagram) broken and seized onto the shaft?

 

[65swb45]

Considering that there is no sleeve that is supposed to be on that part of the shaft, it does appear that someone cut the head off of the original #10 castle nut. That's pretty f-ed up.

You are going to have to get that sleeve off. If I had to face that situation I think that I would try and cu a vertical notch across as much of it as I could with a dremel, then try and crack it with a cold chisel.

Good luck.

And good luck finding another #10.

 

[Nothinghead]

Considering that there is no sleeve that is supposed to be on that part of the shaft, it does appear that someone cut the head off of the original #10 castle nut. That's pretty f-ed up.

You are going to have to get that sleeve off. If I had to face that situation I think that I would try and cu a vertical notch across as much of it as I could with a dremel, then try and crack it with a cold chisel.

Good luck.

And good luck finding another #10.

The more I look at it, I think you’re right. Either the head of #10 was cut off or broke off being reassembled incorrectly. I’m thinking I just repair the top threads, throw on a new castle nut up top and live with a couple degrees of slop. I’ve driven it this way for 11 years now so….

 

[royal cake]

If you can find a “coupling nut” with the right internal threads, the outer diameter can be turned down to the right dimension and then slotted to create the castle nut if you wanted to try to recreate #10. Something like this:

M22 Hexagon Coupling Nuts, Metric Coupling Nut, Stainless Steel Long Rod Hex Nut, Coupler Nut, Hexagonal Sleeve Nut, Studding Connector Length 50 mm (Pack of 1) https://a.co/d/hhgORZh

Of course maybe the threads on that shaft are a weird pitch? I haven’t measured it.

If you find something I’d be happy to try and turn it for you if someone supplied the length. I don’t want to take mine apart

 

[Nothinghead]

If you can find a “coupling nut” with the right internal threads, the outer diameter can be turned down to the right dimension and then slotted to create the castle nut if you wanted to try to recreate #10. Something like this:

M22 Hexagon Coupling Nuts, Metric Coupling Nut, Stainless Steel Long Rod Hex Nut, Coupler Nut, Hexagonal Sleeve Nut, Studding Connector Length 50 mm (Pack of 1) https://a.co/d/hhgORZh

Of course maybe the threads on that shaft are a weird pitch? I haven’t measured it.

If you find something I’d be happy to try and turn it for you if someone supplied the length. I don’t want to take mine apart

thank you for the offer. I can grab some measurements later. I’m sure if someone wanted to make some #10s this way, they’d have at least 2 maybe 3 customers!