Do Anyone Know Of Any Tool That You Put In Between Something Small And Spread It Out?

[blackandgold51]

I had to do that recently to get a pair of front shocks on my truck..
I got a pair of like new shocks off a friends S-10 he had recently replaced--they dont extend quite as far as my originals,but my truck wont be getting air borne,and the springs are sagging enough to let the rubber bump stops almost touch with no weight on the truck..

I had to grind off the metal sleeve in the shock bushing flush in order for them to fit in the shock mount "tabs"..even then they were a very tight fit,so I took one of the old shock bolts,put it thru one of the tabs and screwed a nut back on it,far enough to have 1" of thread sticking out and put the nut against the other shock tab and the protruding bolt threads and gave it a whack with a hammer--the tabs spread open about 1/8",just what I needed to get the shock in between them with no interference..

The shock mount tabs have a strap welded across them towards the back part for a gusset so you cant spread them very much , and they will spread open like a V instead of staying parallel,if you go too far the bolts wont want to go in..

Yep ,the metal sleeve is what is keeping it to go in the mount . I might have to get those sleeves grinded

 

[diesel4me]

I used a sawsall to chop them off,my bench grinder's wheel was too fine a grit for fast heavy metal removal,and those sleeves were some tough steel,I used a "Diablo" metal cutting blade,18 TPI , and I think I'll be lucky if it'll cut wood now after doing 8 cuts on those steel sleeves!..