Finished making a pair of new hubs for my Dayton wire wheels.

[Reno Speedster]

I have a set of Dayton 48 spoke pin drive wheels but the tapers in the rear hubs were bad. I want to use the wheels on my 26 speedster so I decided to make some new hubs. I have a Grizzly lathe and Precision Mathiews mill and enjoy making things.

I found some inexpensive 4130 bar and plate that I had welded together to make the basic shape. After stress relief, I set to work. A daunting part of the project was to do the taper and the keyway, but this was actually pretty easy. I bored the rough taper on the lathe then finished it up with a reamer set up in the mill. I then made a custom tapered guide for a 1/4 in keyway cutter and pressed it through on my hydraulic press. It turned out to be a simple job.

The pins in the original hubs are peened in, but I made the new ones out of hardened 416 stainless. They are longer than the originals and threaded so they go through the hub, brake drum and safety hub and are held in with nuts. This means there are 12 3/8 inch fasteners holding each hub assembly together. It also means I can change the pins easily.

I also had to make the proper hub pullers as the threads are different than Ford hubs and one is right handed and the other left handed.

The hubs look pretty good and should be way stronger than the original castings. Here are some pictures. If anyone is interested in more details or the information on the guy who made the reamer (it was a custom size but reasonable) get in touch.

[Allan]

Most impressive to my untrained eye. You blokes who can drive those machines are way above my pay grade.

Allan from down under.

[AndyClary]

Looks good Morgan. Where did you source the reamer?


Andy

[Reno Speedster]

I got the reamer from a company called XKUT, here is there information:

Phone: 717-362-4181
Web: www.xkutusa.com
Email: xkutusa@outlook.com

It is a 1 1/2 inch per foot taper. They make two sizes of this but one is too small in dia. for the T hub and the other (a #6925 in their catalogue) a bit too large. I asked if they could grind me one the correct size for the T hub and here is what I got back from Brett Forney, the company President:

We have a #6925 ground down for you to suit your application. The very small end diameter is at 0.650. There is reduced flute depth at the small end, so we advise taking some pecking cuts at first and flush the chips as you do so to keep the chips from packing into the flutes. If possible, it'd also be best to drill your hole at 5/8 or as large as you can to the 11/16 dimension you are trying to achieve on the small end.

I believe the price was $139, which I thought quite reasonable. They also offer a sharpening service if you damage or dull your reamer. This gave me the idea they might be able to grind a custom reamer.

The quality was very good and the tapers fit my new axles perfectly. If I slide the hub on and seat it gently it seats with a solid “thunk” and I can hold the axle upside down and the hub won’t fall off. It takes a tap from a rubber mallet to get it off. If I use more force putting it on, it takes a puller to get off.

I don’t have any link to the company, I am just happy to send them some business.

[AndyClary]

Thanks Morgan, I’ll check them out.

Andy