Gate pivot

[Geoff Pearson]

I'm helping a neighbour with her iron (just post-war) garden gate. The top of the gate is held by a u-band bolted to the gate post. The lower end of the gate has a pointed pivot which goes into a hole in the concrete path and over the years it has ground its way down so the gate scraped the path.. I've done a temporary fix with a pile of 5 2 pence coins in the hole which raised the gate the right amount and it it now looks right. But what should be in the ground? I would expect an iron cup or capped tube about 1 inch in diameter. The school gates opposite have the same system (big double gates) but I cannot see what is in the ground.

Does anyone know?

Geoff

[Brian Gaff]

The one I saw seemed to just have a treated tube and a welded on washer on the gate to stop it going all the way down, but I suspect there are endless variations on that!

PS, the local yobs had removed the gate and tossed it onto the flat roof. this was back in the 70s, so they have been around for a while!

Brian

[Geoff Pearson]

Brian

thanks. The gate is so heavy it is quite difficult to lift so I think I will try to make something that can be replaced from time to time. A pile of big washers - which would make a bit of a tube, would do it. At the very least we can afford 5 2 pence pieces a year if that is what make it work. I always assume there was a right way top do things, even though no one can now remember what it was.

Geoff

[Sam Plusnet]

If you have some pre-1992 coins I think I'd use them - since later coins are copper plated steel & should rust away quite quickly once the plating is ground off.

[Dave Liquorice]

Trouble is copper is quite soft, it will wear very quickly. Packet of

1" penny washers and investigate how to harden one to place on the top of the stack?

[dennis]

A ball bearing would probably work if he can pinch one off the school kids.

[Brian Gaff]

Hmm, incidentally, I meant the gates have been around a while, not the yobs, they would be rather old now, the yobs and the gate. Every wish you had nver started writing?

Brian

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Quite a while ago I lifted my front gate of its pivots, put a couple of ball races on the pivots, then lowered the gate back on to them, to lift a fallen gate by the thickness of the ball races.

To lift the gate I used my car's jack.

[Geoff Pearson]

Interesting - where might I look at such ball-races?

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

I can't remember where i got mine, sorry.

[newshound]

Old car wheel bearings? Ebay?

[Weatherlawyer]

Any car parts or biker parts or take an old scrapper apart.