Rescue of a walker drive line shaper

[Christopher Herzog]

Local auction compulsive buy. Thinking it dates to 1927. Spent a weekend cleaning out wasp nests from years gone by. Old motor ran for a bit but had a massive nest in it. Wiring was rotten and needed scraped. Found another, it had bad bearings and also scraped. Motor three was fine aside from the shaft being 5/8, old was 1/2". Thought how hard can it be to enlarge the hole. Well, $28 later i owned a 5/8" milling drill bit and got that squared away. Picked up a few cutters and really looking forward to seeing this back in use. Probably needs a guard over that motor/pulley/belt in the future? I did build it the box, rewired it with a modern on/off switch and grounded power feeding wire. Attached is the before and current state.

Really enjoyed the project so far. My wife and check book, not so much....

Chrischrome_screenshot_1690081263560.jpg20230925_054545.jpg

[Christopher Herzog]

Couple other things:

It is missing a nut on one post. It is a 1/2" 24 tpi, good luck walking in a store and finding that. Found one on line for 57 cents, it also requires $12 shipping. Have not been able to get that taken care of yet. My local hardware store swore they had it and thought metric was the answer. I was like in 1927 they were not doing much in the USA with metric.

Owners manual, unable to find it in the estate.
Anyone have one? Asking for a friend

[Bill Dufour]

Some car lug nuts are 1/2-20. I suppose there may be 1/2-24 lug nut as well? That thread also strikes a bell for grinding wheel nuts.
Good job on the pulley boring. I would have used an expanding reamer.
Bill D

[Christopher Herzog]

13 tpi are standard course threads and 20 tpi are standard fine threads. The 24 tpi must have been common "back in the day". I have heard Fastenal came get them, just need to travel a ways to go to one. It is not a life or death thing, god knows when it was last on there? I bought the only 5/8" bit in town, 1/2 is the largest common size. We just don't have much to pick from in my local stores.

[Bill Dufour]

In my experience 1/2-13 is the largest nut you can make and tap with just hand tools. I would think 1/2-24 would be harder to cut. I see 1/2-24 taps on the bay but they cost about $10. So cheaper and much easier to just buy one nut.
That shows me 1/2-24 is a common thread. I saw it is used for tubing connections, maybe flare nuts? Seems to be for 5/16 tube? You could buy a flare/compression nut and hacksaw off or drill out the part you do not need.
Bill D

They are out there, This also says NPT?
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/55508105

https://www.amazon.com/Dixon-Straigh.../dp/B00LTZ3TEE