I've suffered through numerous replacements of locking taper parts
every time I face these things I'm puzzled by the physics of it all.
Of course, whether or not I understand how and why they work doesn't
change the techniques that are necessary to remove them. But
curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided I just had to know.
I have received some reasonably good explanations (thanks, all!)
since I posted my question, and to an extent I do understand the
basic idea. However there is one obstacle that I find difficult to
overcome: When you are separating the tapered parts, you're pulling
the tapers AWAY from each other! They ought to WANT to come apart.
A good illustration would be an ordinary door stop. The door stop
wedge has to be placed in front of the door so that the door pushes
AGAINST and INTO the incline of the door stop. That this works to
hold a door in place should not surprise anyone. But the way these
locking tapers apparently work is analogous (in my mind, anyway) to
putting the door stop BEHIND the door, so that the door wants to pull
AWAY from the wedge. Wouldn't you find it odd to see a door stop
employed in this fashion and yet see that it is actually holding the
door open?
Obviously, I have to accept that the tapers work exactly the way
people have explained it
I have witnessed it myself, after all.
It's not as if I need to be 'convinced' that locking tapers work,
obviously they do. But am I the only one that finds it somewhat
fascinating that they do work?
Thank you all for your replies and explanations. I believe you, really!
And by the way, I took the upright down the street to the NAPA
machine shop and the guy there pressed the thing apart while I waited
and didn't even charge me!
--
Pete Chadwell
1973 TR6
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