The Wheels

 

Readers of this blog may recall that the full width hub wheels of the Wreck were in a poor state. Half the front wheel had disappeared through corrosion, and the other three were badly rusted in the rim and spokes. Consequently the hubs were salvaged by cutting all the spokes and scrapping the rims.   

The bearings and grease seals were then knocked out of the hubs. This job can be awkward as even with the tubular spacer between the bearings pushed to one side there is little of the inner race of the bearing showing to get a drift on. A drift with a mushroom head may help but I found that a 12mm Rawlbolt with the shells slightly turned down in the lathe would fit. Tightened hard into the tubular spacer gave something solid to hit. Handier people may be able to turn this into a bearing puller. All the bearings were washed out; most were in good condition and fit for further use. 

All the alloy hubs were white with aluminium corrosion though two were found to have been powder coated. These were professionally blasted clean, the other two were cleaned up by hand, a time consuming and tedious job. The two really clean hubs were lacquered.

Hub before and after cleaning

The bearings were packed with LM grease.

Hub with bearings, tube spacer, grease seals and ring spacer \(non-brake side)
Note, Meehanite (fine casr iron) brake surface.

Where new bearings are needed use those pregreased   ones fitted with seals, these will last for ages without further greasing. I heated the hub centres to ease the fit and pushed a bearing onto its seat on the brake drum side. Turning the hub over the tube spacer was dropped in and the distance between the top of the spacer and the shoulder in the hub for the bearing outer was measured. This distance gives the maximum thickness for the shim under the bearing outer for the distance between the outer races of the two bearings must not exceed that between the inner races or the bearings will be crushed together when the wheel spindle is tightened. These hubs were selectively assembled at the factory as the castings vary even after machining. The tube spacer should feel tight between the bearings  and not rattle around. The grease seals were then tapped into place.

Years ago when I rebuilt my 120 I had new rims and spokes fitted but kept the old rims at the back of the garage. These were dragged out and generally found to be sound so were cleaned of surface rust and loose chrome and painted silver with a lacquer top coat. I had boxes of spokes to hand so two sets were zinc plated. I then set about rebuilding the four wheels.

Wheel set, rim, hub, 40 spokes, 40 nipples, one spoke key.

 

 

These wheels have 40 short spokes all of the same length and they cross once only so are easy to lace. I kept a complete wheel alongside as a reference. The inner spokes are fitted to the brake side first, then the wheel is turned over to fit the inner spokes on the second side. The outer spokes are then fitted to both sides.


assembled wheel ready for truing.



 Using a wheel spindle I mounted the wheel on an old swinging arm and adjusted the spokes so that the wheel ran true radially and laterally with the rim central to the hub; there is no offset with these wheels. I aimed for a tolerance of 3/32 of an inch radially and 1/16 inch laterally. This can take ages and it is hard to achieve the given tolerances as many rims seem to have a kink at the weld. Finally all spokes were taken to an equal tension before grinding off any that protruded from the nipple.

Whee; mounted on a swinging arm for truing.