Beading/bead rolling tool/s for steel lines.

[vlad01]

I've had several instances, luckily all in the driveway or in a random car park, so no damage done and able to fix on the spot and get home . All because the barbs are virtually non existent on radiators of the last 15 years at least that I know.

I made a post about it on here about 10 years ago trying to find one that was more like the factory, in the end I had to get a custom PWR one made that had alloy outlets with a good rolled bead, no issue since on those cars.

[Wade]

It’s pretty much just a tapered bolt that obviously pushes the bb’s out the further you screw it in. That was fully screw in so yeah. I’d have to take it apart and chuck the vernier’s onto it and see where on the taper it gets too. And possibly use a longer bolt and or larger bb’s. Could be make to work I guess.

[Wade]

The ol double hose clamp . You see that plenty in boats and even trucks. Definitely good practice to double clamp a few things even if it’s not needed. That way you’ve always got a spare. I first seen that when I was doing marine craft engineering. Then again driving trucks. It’s the difference between being stranded or not

[Wade]

I think something like this could be made to work. Even without a lathe you’d get pretty good results making your own die from putting a normal drill in a vice and hand filing.

[vlad01]

What tool is that one there? Is that yours?

[Wade]

That’s just a cheap tube bender that I never use as I’ve got better ones and some valves from a 60e. I got to thinking about making a bead roller myself

[Wade]

You could make a new handle for the other side out of flat bar. The die that are already on the bender would be pretty close already for the outside die. And those valves are the right sizes for what we need. They’d just need to be ground down. Then I could run pins through the die so they turn and roll ect. Then just weld a nut/bolt on a swivel so you can slow clamp both handles together. It would work in the same way those expensive Parker ones do.

[vlad01]

But what are those two dark metal things with the collars on them?

[Wade]

Valves out of a 4l60e valve body

[vlad01]

Ah right, they look almost ideal for a DIY tool die.