FinnHammer
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Mike,
Lots of usefull input as usual. I have left out the so called wave washer from all my work up to now. I am still debating with myself, should I just do as yourself and at least also Dave, and put those 2 washers in, and miss most of the friction from the outher face of the narrow friction disk, or should I do the scientific thing, omit them, and experience the lousy clutch operation that demonstrates the need for them.
Still does not at all make any sense to what they can possibly benefit, or the mechanism involved in making them work to the benefit of the clutch engagement.
Yes, perhaps a good idea to skim a couple millimeters off the sleeve hub to benefit the nut engaging the shaft.
Btw. regarding the hardness of the shaft, I tested it with a file, as I always do when contemplating "going at" a potentially hardened workpiece with HSS tooling. The shaft is not hardened inside the hole: not a surprise!
Shafts like these are not hardened throughout. If they were, they would be prone to splinter during shock loads. Instead high strength and ductility is needed, how do they do it?
They make the shaft from a steel type formulated for case hardening. This means that the steel is alloyed with chrome and molybdenum, but has low carbon content, below 0.3%C or thereabouts. It is the carbon content that makes it possible to harden the steel.
So they machine the shaft to final dimensions where no particularly fine surface finish is needed, but leave 0.2mm where grinding will be needed after quench hardening. They leave the diameter a couple of mm thicker in places where no surface hardness is desired. This will be turned off later. Unhardenable areas can also be created by covering the part partly by for example copper, you probably still remember those beautifull copper plated conrods on the A7?
After this, the shaft is submerged in a special salt solution which is heated to some 500-600 degrees centigrade, and this allows carbon from the salt to diffuse into the outher layers of the steel. It is the iron portion of the steel it enters. The iron molecules are organised in a cubic structure, meaning that there is an iron molecule in the corner of each cube. The carbon molecules then wander into this lattice, so that it is situated on one of the faces of the cube. In this state, the material is called cubic-face oriented, this is the normal state at elevated temperatures. And the percentage of carbon will be above 0.9% possibly 1.2% When the carbon has entered into a debth of around a millimeters deep, the shaft is taken out of the salt bath, and allowed to cool slowly. During this slow cool down period, the carbon molecules wander into the center of the iron cubes, and the material is now cubic-center-oriented, which is the norm at room temberature.
It is now still relatively soft, and surprisingly nice to machine, if this should be desired. For example, if there are areas of the part that should be left unhardened, it is now time to turn away the layer with high carbon content.
The hardening process can take place now, by heating the shaft to red hot, and quenching it in oil or water. During the heat up, the carbon moleculed wander back into the face-oriented position, and during the quench, they cannot return to cubic center orientation, so the stresses caused by the carbon molecules being trapped outside their normal position inside the iron cubic structure is causing the hardness.
It is now needed to anneal the material, to avoid cracks to form, you can say it is a calibration of the position of carbon in the lattice that is taking place. The shaft is heated to a couple houndred centigrade, some of the hardness is lost, and much ductility is regained.
Finally the part goes to the grinding machines to produce the fit and finish for the gears to mate to.
In the case of my shaft, apparently the hole was either shielded in the salt bath, or it was drilled afterwards. But they either forgot the reamer, or they used a too large drill, rendering the reamer inefficient it being too small for the bore.
So I do not worry too much, the adjusteble reamer will produce a superiour surface, I am confident about that.
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