I never paid a lot of attention to this front hub (the one on the right) until this morning when I noticed the odd raised shoulder around the big end.
Here you can see the three small holes punched in the flange.
A bit of reading in the encyclopedia revealed that those features are for the mounting of a speedometer gear, and they were used from 1914 to 1918. If my reading and my measuring are correct, other details pin this hub down to May of 1914.
This is the kind of thing that makes me grateful to Bruce McCalley for his encyclopedia, to John Regan who researched the front hubs, and all the other folks who contributed to the project. It's a wonderful resource.
I would like to add, that the flanged hub was also used with the hubs with the greater amount of threads, like in 1915. They have also been noted on cars as early as 1912, on both sides!
Here's what Larry was referring to.
Thanks for posting Steve, great photos. The trouble with those early hubs, is it's hard to find one that will hold a bearing race. I've had late hubs converted to early, and that works out well too.
Steve,
I agree with you that we are blessed that Bruce, John, Ray Miller, Les Henry, Floyd Clymer and others have all continued to build on the previous information to help increase our knowledge and understanding about the Model Ts. And hopefully we as a group will continue to add to that excellent information they have already compiled for us.
Minor comment, I believe the photo of the hub you posted has the short number of threads which would make it 1916 or later and then the speedometer gear would limit how far into the teens it would go. Of course it has been one of those nights watching the friend's kids for them -- I may have it backwards. But for sure I'm thankful for the research and the folks on the forum.
Respectfully submitted,
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