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My Niva did not come with a tire hold-down clamp so, I decided to make one.
On June 16, in Renfrew Ontario, I had a visit from a Niva owner, Jack
Tweedie who is a recent member of the Lada Owners Club of Canada. Jack had
several great Niva stories to share with me and he loaned me a couple of the
gazettes he receives. Also, Jack let me take a look at the hold-down clamp in
his Niva. I traced the parts and on June 18, 2001, I made the clamp. It worked
great!
For those of you who want to know how I made the tire hold-down, I've included
the methodology I employed (as well as an alternative one), some digital pictures
of the components, and a technical drawing of the parts I made.
- The first step was to determine what the thread diameter and pitch was for
the "screw" part. It is a metric thread 10 x 1.5
- One of my manufacturing students then made the "wing-nut"
part.
- Then, I bought a 300mm (about a foot) long threaded rod. A bit too long;
however, this was what they had in stock. I threaded on a flanged nut and
then held the unit vertically against a 1" diameter rod clamped in a
chop saw with an abrasive blade in it. Very carefully, I lowered the blade
into the end of the threaded rod and made a cut similar to the notch in the
end of an arrow that the bowstring fits into. This notch is to accept the
"wing-nut" part.
- I put all of the pieces together and welded them using a MIG welder.
- Not liking the bulbous weld this created, I took the part over to an engine
lathe and turned the the weld down cutting into the hex part of the nut. This
made everything round and pretty!
- After all of the manufacturing was done, I cut the rod to size using a hack
saw.
- I chamfered the end to make threading it into the mount easier using a bench
grinder.
- Using the tracing I made from Jack Tweedie's clamp, I had the same manufacturing
student heat it up using the oxygen/acetylene torches and bend it to fit the
shape outlined by the tracing and drill a 7/16" hole in the top section
(see detailed drawings).
- Then, I sand blasted the metal parts to clean them up using a sand
blaster I had made 12 years ago and spray painted them black.
Alternatively, one could cut the metal for the clamp to length using a hack
saw. The bending could be done cold as the steel is relatively thin. And a bolt
of the correct length could be bought and installed eliminating the welding
I did to make the "wing-nut" part; however, you'd need a wrench to
get your spare tire out. Or, a longer bolt could be used and cut to length with
a hack saw and the end filed to create the chamfer.
Check out some pictures of the finished product.
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