Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Hub cotter pins

Hello all,

Anyone have tricks for getting out a particularly ornery hub castle nut cotter pin?

First one took a good bit of work but persistence paid off. The second one has demoralized me.

Any advice or ideas will be most appreciated.

-Nelson
66 Plus 4 2-seater RHD

It'll come eventually. You can try putting something like a bradle through the loop and levering it out a bit. Also a bit of a tap on the other end with something like an old drill bit that will fit between the castellations can help.

Nelson

I assume you have wire wheel hubs?

As above it is just a matter of persistence . It helps to have someone else around to help advise you when things are in line.

My procedure used to be

1 Unbend the cotter pin with thin nosed pliers via the drilled hole

2 Get hold of the other end of the pin from the other drilled hole with even thiner nosed pliers and try to pull .

3 If this fails try to push the pin from the bottom using a small drift on the end of the pin, care needed this can bend the pin and then you need to go back to 1. If you think the pin is stuck , you may be able to snip off the ends using a thin-nosed snip , but most tools will be too big for this.

4 If this fails , use a thin nosed drift from the outside of the hub and try to "lift" the pin by spearing it on the end of the drift and gently levering upwards, care needed this may bend the pin.

5 If in real desperation and nothing is working , I have seen someone successfully drill out the cotter pin. I don't recommend this method as you now need to dismantle the hub and clean out all the bearings and possibly fit a new seal , so this really is a last resort method only.

Nelson

Very simple solution however I will stress it’s not good engineering practice but It’s often the way garage mechanics get these out (we don’t always do the right thing you might be surprised to learn ;-)).

Okay start by breaking off the split end as much as you can by pulling it backwards and forwards with a needle nose pliers and get as much as you can of the metal pin out.

Now fit your socket short extension and knuckle bar and rock the socket backwards and forwards a couple of times just to shear the split pin loop end.

No fish out as much of the debris of the pin as you can then slowly unwind the nut and remove the hub.

You will obviously need to clean the outer bearing and inner race in the hub to remove any little bits of metal but you will find it almost always is just trapped in the grease.

Clean out the hole drilled in the Stub axle by tapping through a small centre punch, again clean everything up as much as possible.

Finally fit the castellated nut back onto the Stub axle the wrong way round and wind up and down the thread three or four times until you can turn it by hand with no effort, you are simply doing this to clean the threaded area and make sure everything is fine then rebuild as normal when you finished whatever you are doing.

Contradicts all the best engineering practice but when you’re stuck you’re stuck and this is the way mechanics do it in the garage as they don’t faff about trying to get out split pins most would just use an air gun on it and wind it straight off and clean the bearing afterwards as it saves considerable time either side and for mechanics time is money when on bonus!

Remember split pins are very soft metal and never had to drill one as I think that has the potential for disaster if the drill snaps and a small drill bit long enough to get through the stub from outside the splined area???????? Very dodgy.

BR
Colin

^^^^^ I've used the same method in the past, and it works well.

I grip the pin hoop with a pair of long nose mole grips, clamp 'em really tight and you can then tap the 'moles' out with a mallet which withdraws the pin

Or, thread some wire through the hoop, lead the wire beyond the hub & clamp in a mole grip & again tap that out

I use a variant of Colin's approach. I have a pair of really long snipe-nosed pliers like these. Firstly I waggle the split ends back and forth until they break free, then grip the other end and pull it out by winding the pliers. Once it's moved a bit you can change your grip and shift it more.

All very true chaps unless someone has wellied in an oversize pin! Have done more than one where the loop end has been flattened closed through hammering in. Stupid and no thought of future strip downs. One (owner on here) had been serviced from new by a Morgan dealer and yes they had had the discs off less than a year before. No amount of fettling with all the kit I have would budge it, when someone is visiting for just the day to have kingpins fitted you need to crack on and get it done. As some of you know you had 3 hour plus drives home. It frustrates me how some ‘mechanics’ butcher fixings with no thought of the next person to strip down.

BR
Colin

Maybe if they got some of their own handiwork back again it would dissuade them?

Given the story I was given of an estimate increasing by a significant amount because of a ‘crossed thread’ on a caliper bolt when the only person to remove and refit the very bolt was self same dealership I doubt it. When I stripped it down the caliper bracket thread was stripped at the end of the thread and 4 washers had been fitted to pack the bolt out!!!

Lucky I kept spare brackets in stock as I had fitted a fair few 300mm disc kits from Mulfab so it was not a big issue. All my black Museum stuff was handed over to Cain at Wolf and there was a fair bit of it, then again I had been fitting the stuff on Morgan’s for 20 years ;-).

BR
Colin