Wheel Building Is Critical To Our Safety

[Ken Buhler]

I renamed this post as I was concerned it was too similar to the already long discussed subject of rebuild and shim questions. This has been a very interesting and involved topic and, it is not my intent to hijack the discussion. Yet, I am hoping to have constructive criticisms and contributions to my post on the technical aspect of wheel rebuilding.
There are a few points about building wheels that have not been mentioned and should not be overlooked. Last year I disassembled about 120 wheels to process for rebuild. I lined up the individual parts to look for anomalies and was surprised by my findings. My discoveries go contrary to some opinions I have heard.
1 - After years of use, with the wheels rocking side to side, the hub flange and spoke plate are slowly bent out between the hub bolts. Tightening the bolts does not cause that. A 3/8" bolt is not strong enough to crush Hickory.
2 - The rear hubs are often misread as needing a shim, yet sometimes they may. I cleaned and fitted 18 rear wire wheel hubs and more than twenty wood wheel hubs to a new axle mounted in my vise. I noted the fit and measured the length of thread protruding. What I have discovered is, where the nut or lock washer rides, the hub gets dented in and creates a "choke" on the axle. This holds the hub out allowing it to rock causing the thought that it needs a shim. Stick your small finger in the hole and feel the burr, that needs to be removed.
With the hub mounted in my vise, I used a 3/8" coarse rat tail file first from the outside to in, then inside to out. Glide on the factory taper being careful to not to wear that area. Work your way around feeling the burr disappear.

This shows the flange warp.

Tool made from junk hub

Reverse side of press tool.

Spacer ring in place

Plate to be pressed.

This exceeds the volume per post so I will post again.

[Ken Buhler]

Press until it bottoms out and whack usually once at each bolt hole to flatten the plate.

Bottom view of tool.

This side view is to show the amount of inset needed to factor in the bounce back. This leaves the plate with a very subtle amount of cupping so that the plate has a slight claw edge to "bite" the spokes.

[Les Schubert]

Interesting stuff

[Ken Buhler]

Move to re-post.

[WillyR]

awesome thread, as one new to T's and wood wheels, This is a gold mine of information.

I'm making plans to possibly rebuild my rears in the next year or so, or maybe when I install my ruckstell.

I'll pay extra attention to those hub flanges.

[Steve Jelf]

When Ford started using Timken-style front wheel bearings they put notches in the hubs to facilitate removal of worn cups. When I used 17-18 hubs in my new front wheels, I added notches too. Why didn't I use original-type ball bearings? Because they require some parts that are no longer available.

[big2bird]

The original ball bearings have no thrust control. Timkin rollers do. There is ZERO reason to use ball bearings.

[big2bird]

Clint Darmstead used to bore the hole tight, pressing in the hub to force the spokes out under tension.

[Ken Buhler]

My focus here is not about the bearings as they do not control spoke wobble. This is about noting the hub flanges and plates being forced out laterally between the bolts, causing the warpage that I am correcting. The front hub in my lathe is showing the sections between bolt holes where the cutting tool has not yet reached. When I first start the cut, there can be up to .050 or more of warp on the flange alone. Add the warp of the plate and you have a lot of space for spoke movement. Spanking a spoke plate visually flat doesn't complete the task at hand. There needs to be a very slight cupping of the plate to get a claw grip on the spokes when you tighten the hub bolts.

[Allan]

There is nothing wrong with Ken's approach to get things as neat and straight as possible before doing a rebuild. However, one must realise that assembling 12 bits of hickory wood from likely different planks/trees is not a precise science. The timber will give some, it will accommodate different pressures, it will compress at different rates, it will absorb moisture to different degrees, so starting with everything in order is fine, but the wheels do need to be kept in mind whenever conducting maintenance work on the cars. I inspect the hub bolts often.

Allan from down under.