Well, I thought all 1911-13 front hubs were the same until I gathered my small stash of these hubs on my workbench to clean them up and chase the hubcap threads getting them ready for possible sale. One thing I noticed is that when the hubs were placed hubcap side down on the table not all were the same! A few had two cutout notches for easier removal of the inner (large) bearing cup, one had no such notches, and one was completely open in the casting just inboard of the bearing cup giving complete 360 degree access to the cup’s underside. What was going on here? I headed to the Model T Encyclopedia and found the following reference.
- Encyclopedia Reference.jpg (56.42 KiB) Viewed 149 times
It appears the ability to easily punch out the large bearing cup was not initially part of the hub’s design. According to the archives, on 12/4/12 a change in the casting to remove what looks like a ¼” deep reinforcing collar just below the bearing cup was made. Then on 12/18/12, a reconsideration was made to reinstate the reinforcement, but with two cutout openings to still give access to the underside of the bearing cup.
The following pictures are my examples of what the before, during design change, and after the change look like. You can see that my short lived hub experienced a spun bearing cup – not an unusual happening, but maybe the reduced contact area under bearing cup had some part in the cup’s inability to stay put.
I wonder if anyone else has one of these short lived design hubs.
Cheers,
Rich C.
