A problem solved with hand tools

[klugesmith]

Is there a better sub-forum to discuss metalworking, and fabrication of things other than electric circuits?

The other day my old wet-or-dry Shop-Vac had a sudden failure.  Motor slowed down and started howling.  Probably time for a new vacuum cleaner.  But not before a good-faith attempt to fix the 25-year-old unit.  They don't make 'em like they used to, i.e. with tanks of steel instead of plastic.

Can't get to motor without removing the impeller, secured to shaft with a rusty old nut.  The impeller is hard to hold, in this model, because it's surrounded by molded plastic "stator blades".  Don't want to damage the thin sheet metal, nor have the circular edge slice into live human fingers when the grip slips.

Let's see if a jpg attachment, my first here, survives the upload and tells the story.  First use of the "chain" Vise-Grip tool that came my way some time in the last year.


[edit] So far so good.  Now about the second picture, revealing a very troubled bearing on this end:
p.s. Don't mix up the English words vise and vice.  Vise is a work-holding tool.  Vice is a personal habit, like smoking or drinking too much alcohol, that's considered bad for health or moral reasons. :-)  Like fuse and fuze, but that's another story.

[Hydron]

The only tools like that I'd seen before were "chain whips" for working on bicycles (specifically for holding the sprockets for removal). Looks like a pretty handy tool, glad I know about it's existence now!

[Mads Barnkob]

Nice to see a old unit, where you can actually repair it, gets repaired and put back in service

My father always had some of those in his garage, those were oil filter changing wrenches.

https://www.bahco.com/en/p/chain-oil-filter-wrench/ca-a5-b5-25-fa-c2-a1-5d-30-b5-60-9c-c3-85-d1-73/

[klugesmith]

I gave up on that shop vac motor.  The ball bearing at near end had moved axially within molded plastic end bell.

Took the opportunity, yesterday, to get a picture of that chain tool, which locks tight with an adjustable over-center mechanism just like vise-grip pliers.  https://www.irwin.com/tools/locking-tools/the-original-locking-chain-clamp

[klugesmith]

Hope this does not look like beating a dead horse.
For the picture in previous post, the vise-grip chain tool was too short to fit around the white plastic sleeve, so it had to go on the Pb-filled steel pipe that extends above the plastic.  Today it clamped onto the larger diameter section (circumference 19.8 inches or 503 mm), using a loose dowel pin in the last hole of the last link.