It’s high time I acquired some Tub Nut Spanners to suit my two top-loaders - a Simpson 705 from the late ‘80s, and a US-made GE WISR106CT5 from the late-90’s. The Simpson utilises a nut of the style that has the four little notches missing around its circumference at 90deg intervals, whereas the GE’s Nut is a conventional hexagonal shaped item.
Looking through the various Spanner listings on eBay, I have noticed that several of the items for sale that are described as being suitable for GE tub-nuts, achieve the hexagonal drive required for a GE nut by employing a two-piece arrangement, wherein a smaller separate round casting with a GE-sized hex-shaped hole in the middle, is driven by a spanner-proper with handles, via 4 little protruding rectangular lugs on the spanner that mate with 4 matching holes in the round piece. The 4 lugs on the spanner look very much like they might also suffice to remove the “4-Notch”-type tub-nut that is used on my Simpson. It would obviously be excellent for me if such was actually the case. Please refer to the photo below to see the type of arrangment that I am referring to...
In connection with this type of spanner, and "4-notch"-type tub-nuts in general, may I please ask the following questions:
1) Has there only ever been one single size of 4-Notch nut that has ever appeared on any brand of machine - Simpson or otherwise?
2) If the answer to the above question is “no”, then what brand of US-market machine might have used the same size of 4-notched nut as the one in a late-90’s Simpson?
3) In the type of spanner arrangement shown below, are the parent spanners always the exact same size? (ie. is the distance across them between the inner edges of the lugs always the same?)
4) Has anyone here with a Simpson actually purchased one of the spanners I am referring to for either a GE or some other brand with a hexagonal nut, and then found that the parent-spanner has sufficed for their Simpson into the bargain?
5) Does anyone here in Australia sell this arrangement of spanner at a reasonable price?
Being able to buy one here in Oz (compared to the US listings on eBay) would reduce the cost of returning it if it didn't end up fitting my Simpson…
Any other comments on the subject would be most welcome…