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Posted by David Sherman on Monday, May 11, 2009 at 01:13:30 :
In Reply to: Re: O.T. source for 1.5-12 spindle nut posted by mannyc on Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 10:43:32 :
Yes, if need be, I can get a regular full-height castellated nut and cut it off short on the lathe. It's the nut that holes the pontoons onto the Sno-Cat. When I had the Sno-Cat in the car show this weekend, I noticed that the spindle/hub nuts on 3 of the 4 pontoons were very loose. One just needed tightening. Another had a bronze nut that had stripped out, but the spindle threads were still good and I repaired it by borrowing a nut off my other Sno-Cat which is currently dead-lined with a broken axle shaft. On the 4th one, both the nut and the spindle threads are damaged, and I'm hoping that a new nut will grab well enough to hold it. It's rather scary knowing that I went along some pretty steep and lumpy hillsides last winter with the pontoons ready to fall off. All that was holding them on was the cotter pin, and one of the pins already had its head sheared off and half of its tail as well. It could easily have broken the rest of the way on one of the steep side-hills. Unfortunately, that spindle is a special Tucker part, not part of the standard Dodge axle assembly. A smaller nut holds the Dodge hub onto the tapered, keyed axle shaft. The track drive sprocket has a flange in the middle of it that bolts over the hub, rather like a brake drum would, and then the spindle bolts onto the outboard side of that. The outer end of the spindle goes through a sealed ball bearing that supports the outboard side of the pontoon and is clamped in place by this nut. The inboard side of the pontoon simply has a loose-fitting open bushing around the end of the axle tube, which presumably only makes contact when the strain is severe enough to bend the outer axle/sprocket/spindle assembly. The only thing that keeps the whole shebang from sliding off is that one spindle nut and its cotter pin.