Blacksmith Artistry

If you've been following along, you may remember that there are two special bolts that essentially hold the front axle to the rest of the carriage, which are extremely worn. The general consensus was to replace them, but they are not parts that can be acquired new, from any of the usual sources. In fact, I am guessing that some aspects of the running gear were built AROUND these two special bolts.

In this photo, you can see a vertical "T bolt" that is mounted to the spring bar, passes in front of the axle, then drops down through the ends of the long spring leaves that form a "wishbone"support for the rest of the suspension.  Just looks like a piece of hardware, any old body could fabricate, right?

The end of the original bolt was threaded too far up and the action of those two spring ends flexing against the bolt was putting a fairly severe shearing action on the threads. It may last forever, it may not survive one more good shock.

Knowing that this wasn't exactly an ordinary fabrication challenge, this bolt and its mate, the king bolt went to a blacksmith artist to be reproduced.

The new part - I believe it is called a "perch bolt" -has a subtle bend where it joins the mounting plate,and it has a slight "stop" machined in which maintains a loose spacer at a certain height when joined to the axle.

The blacksmith, who had the entire axle for fit purposes, did not thread the bolt up as far, so all the bearing surface will be full diameter stock.

The king bolt, companion to the perch bolt, passes through the spring bar, the front axle, and the "wish bone".  It has two problems. The first problem is the bolt head.  The ends of the "T" bolt head are fitted with prongs that sink into the wood spring bar, supposedly keeping it from turning.  Complete fail. Not only does the bolt turn, but the prongs caused considerable damage to the wood of the spring bar.

And again, the threads run up too high and are subject to the shearing action of the wishbone.

Instead of replicating the old T-head bolt, I asked the blacksmith for another, authentic style of bolt head, a beautiful, difficult to make crowned bolt head...

Which clamps perfectly over the spring bar.

Again, the threads do not go far enough to pass through the wishbone, so the bolt is full dimension stock all the way through its working area.

I feel so fortunate to have this skilled craftsman so close by! And I can also breath a sigh of relief that these critical components are new and safe, as well as visually beautiful.

Now, pretty much the last clean up job is stripping the axle, and reassembling it to the rest of the running gear.  Stay tuned, pictures in a few days!