On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, David Hill wrote:
> 3. Theory question: In the case of bleed screws, and brake line flare
> connections, these are metal-to-metal connections, and they don't leak. How
> can they not leak? Why is no gasket needed?
>
> Very thin contact area with a lot of clamping force. Nearest analogy-the
> valves in your engine don't have gaskets ;-).
ALSO, we have here a tapered contact area- and often in the case of brake
parts, one half of the contact is of a soft(er) metal so that one side
acts as the "gasket".
The sealing contact points look like this bad ASCII art:
-------\ \------
-------/ /------
Tapered interference fit / threaded fit are used all over the place in
metalworking & plumbing applications, but I can't think of a "real world"
example, other than yer average #2 Morse Taper tail stock dead center...
or 1/2" NPT pipe thread... (hmm)
I ramble on a bit in the FAQ about how brake fittings work but I doubt I
go into much useful detail :-)
Hmm, probably high time I wrote some more for that document...
-Malcolm
* There is a FAQ for this list! Its new home is:
http://www.islandnet.com/~walker05/triumph/trfaq.htm
|