TT Solid Tires and Wooden Fellow

[Corvette Guy]

My TT has solid rear tires with wooden fellows. One of the rims is kind of loose between the fellow and rim and is currently shimmed to keep it on the rim. It's my understanding that other wooden fellow wheels have rivets that keep the fellow on the metal rim, this doesn't seem to have them. So how are they held on?

[DanTreace]

Looks like one rivet plate is there.

[Corvette Guy]

How does the rivet plate work?

[Mark Gregush]

In this case I think it acts like a fender washer for the rivet to go thru to spread the load across the felloe, not in just a small area the size of the rivet head. On the car type wood felloe wheels, there were a lot more rivets and a plate at each of the two joints. The felloe on the wheel you show for the TT is a lot wider so may not have needed as many. When a wood felloe wheels is assembled the rim is heated and shrunk on so everything is tight when it cools.

[DanTreace]

That metal clincher rim is heated and then shrunk onto the wood felloe as Mark posted.

On the T car, the wood felloe is 2 pieces, junction plate to secure, rivets there to help keep rim from slipping.

But with wood age, lost of moisture, dry conditions of use, the wood will shrink away from the metal rim. Just wears out. 100 year old hickory felloe and spokes can't be expected everytime to stay safe for road use.

IMG_3142 (500x375) - Copy.jpg (102.14 KiB) Viewed 3963 times

[Corvette Guy]

With the solid tires how would one go about heating up the rim and replacing a rivet? I'm guessing the rubber would melt if there was too much heat and it looks like the tire has to be removed to replace the rivet.

Is there a way to remove the solid tire and use the rim with a regular inflatable tire?

[Humblej]

Solid tires cannot be removed and reused, and those rims and wheels will not take tube tires. one option is to replace the wheels with newer TT demountable rims and wheels that use tube tires, the other is to rebuild your wheels and have new solid tires installed, neither is an inexpensive proposition, but the newer wheels with demountable rims would be the better route for availability, cost, and performance. Dont drive on what you have.

[B_Calimer]

The wood felloe wheels with solid tires are made a little different than wheels with pneumatic tires.

Usually the wood wheel is made with a flat felloe band shrunk on the wood felloe. The rim with the solid tire is then pressed onto the wheel. Fork lift tires are pressed on the same way today. There usually were some sort of joining plates where the felloe ends meet that used rivets or bolts and nuts. The heads of them being counter sunk into the flat felloe band. Some wheels I have worked on have just had some screws or metal pins through the band into the felloe. The fasteners are to keep the band from shifting during the pressing process. Nothing goes into the tire rim.

The large Mack trucks and others had their wheels and tires done the same way. When a tire wore out you went to the tire shop and had the old one pressed off and a new one pressed on.

The shim you see might be the felloe band. The plate on the felloe doesn't look like it is in the right place and if only one is there, I would guess it is a makers plate. Just a guess.

The tire on the wheel looks good and probably could maybe be used for some short trips. The wheel, not so much. The tire rim probably would eventually walk off the old wheel. If you have a new wheel made it needs to be sized correctly so the wheel and felloe band can be pressed into the tire rim.

As suggested converting to pneumatic tires would be a better option.

I hope you find this information useful.

[Corvette Guy]

I pulled up the little plate and I think it's just a makers plate. I can't see a trip much longer than 4 miles to the little towns around my house, via some country roads. That said, the felloes / rim joint is pretty wonky and the wheel needs to be fixed before I do anything other than drive up and down the driveway.

On some of the other posts I saw where guys would tac some veneer around the felloe to take up the gap and repress the wheels. Some say it's fine to do so, others say it's a bad idea. I don't know, but the wood is solid.

I've got another truck coming, I'm hoping it has better wheels. If not there's an Amish wheel guy the next county over that I might have take a look at it.

If I were to buy a used set of inflatable wheels, what is a fair price?

[Humblej]

Forget about trying to repair those wheels. Check the mtfca classifieds and place a wanted ad, watch ebay. Expect to pay $1000 or more for good wheels and rims. There are several size tt wheel options, any will do. Most are the 2 piece modern truck rim style, they also had wheels with one piece split rims. You cannot mix and match wheels and rims.

[Corvette Guy]

A little update on my wheels. I took the loose one to a local Amish Wheelwright. He said the spokes were solid but the felloe was rotten, most likely due to sitting outside. As it has a steel rim with a solid tire on it, he can't use heat to rebuild the wheel. He said he'll steam bend up some new felloes and put everything back together for $250 with a 4 week turn around time.

He said it might not be a bad idea to drill and tap through the felloe into the rim to help keep everything in place. He mentioned using some sort of bolt that would look like a rivet. It's not the way they came, but it sounds like a good idea.

[Humblej]

Sounds like a good plan if you have a horse drawn wagon or buggy.