Vent: Saw a crew in Omaha using a weird trick for a stubborn flange

I was visiting a plant up there last month and watched a team trying to seat a new flange on a high-pressure line. They were fighting it for an hour. The foreman grabbed a bucket of ice water and a rag, cooled just the outer edge of the flange for about five minutes while keeping the pipe hot from a torch on the inside. The temp difference shrank it just enough to drop right into place. I'd never seen that done outside of a textbook. Has anyone else pulled a similar trick on a tight-tolerance fit?

3 comments

3 Comments

max2232mo ago

That's a solid trick. I once spent a whole afternoon trying to press a bearing into a housing with a hydraulic ram, making zero progress. Finally read the spec sheet and realized I'd mixed up the inch and metric versions. The thermal trick would have been less embarrassing than admitting that to the shop foreman.

ivanbell2mo ago

Man, that's the worst feeling, isn't it? I did something similar trying to get a steering stem bearing into a motorcycle triple tree. Fought it for hours, heating and beating, before I noticed the old bearing race was still stuck in there. Felt like a total genius.

logan5612mo ago

My old Ford truck had a stubborn axle seal. Used a slide hammer for an hour with no luck. Grabbed the torch and heated the housing for 30 seconds, it popped right out. Sometimes you just need more heat than force.