MTFCA Forum

Our '21 Touring ran smoothly until I recently replaced the tube in the left rear tire. Now we have the shakes at any speed above about 10 MPH. The wheels are non-demountables. No spokes are loose that I can tell and the 30x3 1/2 tire appears to be seated properly on the rim. I am willing to build a spoke press to replace the spokes in the wheel, like the one in Steve Jelf's video. Can anyone direct or link me to another good how-to on rebuilding a (rear) non-demountable wheel with wooden felloes? Thanks.

Tommy

unfortunately there is no such press or video for fixing wood-fello wheels. I suspect that you have sheared off a rivet or two which centers the clincher rim to the fello itself...meaning the entire wheel is true except for the rim. It is not all that uncommon and means you are headed for a professional rebuild-all new, or if you are handy, the removal of the clincher rim, refacing the felloe to perfectly round and then bonding a thin veneer of wood on the OD to reestablish a press fit.

All that said, with luck you may find the rim to be darn tight and can be coaxed back to truth and a new rivet installed. All the dealers carry them.

good luck

Not exactly what you wanted to know but will help you see the process for a wood felloe wheel and whats involved. https://www.hemmings.com/hmw/how-its-ma ... heels.html

Did you have the wheel off the axle? I had a problem with a wobbly rear wheel, but after measuring, I knew the wheel was true. The problem I had was a worn axle key way. When I installed the wheel on the taper, the loose key would push back toward the bearings and slide up the back side causing the wheel to cock forward.

You have to do a thorough diagnosis firstly, just a wabbly wheel could be several things. Jack it up chalk and spin it and see what is untrue, the wheel on the axle, is the rim running true, is the tire running true, is the felloe misaligned. I made about a dozen wheels, turned the spokes and made the felloes. The assembly was somewhat exacting. I placed 6 spokes into a half felloe and placed it in the rim, the other 6 spokes were placed into the felloe and the assembly was inserted into the rim, the felloe with the 6 spokes required to be pressed in, however I used a wood mallet and drove it in, it was very tight. The felloe must be centered in the rim before the rivets are put in and the two ends are secured with a metal clasp and riveted. If your rivets are compromised, loose or broken and the felloe is off, it is relatively easy to repair.

I did not remove the wheel from the car, I removed the tire, replaced the tube and tire with the wheel on the car. I probably got too aggressive when remounting the tire and moved the rim to the inside of the felloes? I would love to be able to remove the tire and realign the rim with the rest of the wheel.

Thom: Wobble and Shaking are two sides of the same coin. You have shaking, have you measured or visually confirmed actual Wobble? If no wobble and no visible wheel damage, I'd look at balance issues with the new tire/wheel assembly. Are you using dynabeeds or similar? That's where I would start. Best, jb

First jack up the axle on that side and spin the wheel. Use a reference point such as a board with a spike upward next to the wheel. Measure at various points the distance between the rim and the reference. Should be less than 1/2 inch variation. Then measure distance from center of the tire and the point. Is the tire off center or the rim? Next measure the center of the tire from the floor. Is the tire closer to the floor in one place than another? If all these are true, then perhaps the balance is off. You can get some idea of balance by jacking up both sides with the front wheels blocked from rolling and with the transmission in gear, vary the speed of the engine and see if it vibrates. If it is out of balance, you must ask others or look for posts on how to balance wheels on the car. I know how to do it on front wheels, because they turn freely and the heaviest place moves to the bottom, but not sure how to do it on rear wheels.
Other possible causes of the problem would be loose spokes, hub not straight on the axle, loose spokes.
Norm

Norman, good advice for the OP, but with a non-demountable wheel, don't you think 1/2" allowable wobble is pushing the envelope a little? Personally, I wouldn't accept a demountable that ran out that much.

You could not move the rim on the felloe unless the rivets are broken, if that is what happened you will Some time the rivets are hard to define in the rim because they are rusted and blend with the rim. With a Dremel tool you can grind the rust and define the rivet.

With all this talk of a possibly loose felloe on the rim due to one or more broken rivets... there's not many as it is, I would think he would be able to actually move the fellow a bit on the rim to indicate that. Also, there surely would be some broken paint between the felloe and rim. At any rate, IF that's the case, I sure's as hell wouldn't be driving that car even down the driveway!
Time for a new spoke/felloe job.

thom wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:40 am

I did not remove the wheel from the car, I removed the tire, replaced the tube and tire with the wheel on the car. I probably got too aggressive when remounting the tire and moved the rim to the inside of the felloes? I would love to be able to remove the tire and realign the rim with the rest of the wheel.

If that's what happened, you did not get too aggressive... you got lucky! If everything were in good shape there is no way you could move the rim on the felloe. Realigning the rim to the felloe is a band-aide fix. It also suggests that your other 3 wheels are in the same condition, and ready to do the same thing, but at a more undesirable time. It's a dangerous situation that calls for new spokes.

If you're dealing with an original wheel, you should definitely follow Jerry O's advice. If it's a recent re-spoke, I'd send it to whoever rebuilt it and see if he can straighten it. He will have the equipment necessary to build a wheel true so he'd be the most likely candidate to re-true it.

The spoke press is a fine method for installing spokes in demountable, steel felloe wheels, but the wood felloe type are a different breed of cat and best left to an established, competent professional, in my opinion. As always, YMMV.

You say that everything is tight. All you did was replace tube and tire. Try taking it to a motorcycle shop that can balance it for you. If they say it is balanced, then you have an axle problem, not a wheel problem.

I thought that I had studied up on Model Ts enough to know what we wanted 3 years ago when we bought our '21 Touring for what I thought was a very good price. I wish I had known that wooden felloe wheels were the least desireable, most PITA ones to have. I knew I would rather have had de-mountables but bought the Touring anyway. Now I really can't justify spending the money to have the existing wheels rebuilt and I suppose buying a set of de-mountables would be as expensive, even if I built a spoke press and rebuilt them my self. De-mountables would not use the existing, good, 30x3 and 30x3 1/2 tires I have now, right?

they'd use the two 30x3 1/2's
you'd have to buy two more to match

the 30x3's would become tire swings.

I know you're frustrated, but demountables have their own set of trouble when purchasing a car, so don't let that discourage you. Regarding clincher (your wheels), once the clinchers are right, meaning good tubes, tire flaps, and tires which are new enough to not need changing. You may find that depending on the amount of driving you do, you may tour for years with out a flat or any other trouble.

Chaffins sells great tubes. Others may as well, but I've most recently bought from Chaffins and am REALLY pleased with them.

Risking a Tire Flap/Rim Flap War, I'll tell you my reasoning: Modern tires are NOT made like originals and many do not fully support the tube, allowing the tube to bulge and touch the rim. If your rim is rough, it will wear. If you make an error on installation, you will pinch the tube and have a flat and get to start taking the tire off all over. Looking at Be_zero_Be's thread regarding McLaren wheels, you will see that, unrelated specifically to his problem, Universal Driver tires vs Firestones have a tremendously different cross section on them and the Universal will allow significant bulging, stretching and rubbing on the rim, when compared to the Firestones...thus my advice for the tire flaps. Flaps are NOT rim liners and don't be distracted by folks who don't know, but will offer advice. Chaffin's and Lang's, for instance, calls their "rim flaps" 5 inch wide bands which fit INSIDE the tire...huh? (https://www.modeltford.com/item/RF2.aspx is what you'd want with 30x3 1/2). That's what you want though, the wide band which fits INSIDE the tire, regardless of what a vendor calls it...just be sure you get the right thing.

Sorry you're having difficulty, but heck, it IS an antique car and IS 99 years old...