One of the axles in a liquid nitrogen bath, still boiling here and shrinking down maybe 0.004" in diameter.
The axle is done boiling here so it's at about 77 Kelvin or -196 degrees celsius. Pretty chilly, that.
This is a warm planet cage on the press ready to accept the axle.
A cold axle after having been pressed into a warm planet cage. A bit frosty, eh?
Another view of the cold axle in the warm cage. You can see the frost starting to form on the planet cage as the two parts are starting to equilibrate in temperature. The fit was a little looser than I had wanted.
Some of the planet components: bronze thrust washers, bronze bushings, bored and reamed gears, hardened steel dowel pins cut to length and the planet cage welded onto the axle.
Here are the three major assemblies: the left hub half and ring gear, the loaded planet cage, and the right hub half and sun gear.
This is a view of the assemblies after the axle and planet cage have been pressed into the left hub half. There was a bearing pressed into the hub first.
