In the past two British car shows that I attended in the past few weeks, I
met two individuals who have
converted steel wheel cars to wires.
At the Westtown affair, I met a gentleman who converted a 71 Midget and who
had done so by simply
swapping the wire axles in.
He said he and his brother took the car out for a test spin and as soon as
they went up a steep hill the
limited engaged splines striped off the axle. In this case they were
unaware of the different lengths
of the axles. He indicated that the axle did not break clean, but
actually shaved just the splines off.
At the Hellertown affair, I met a fellow, Chris, who converted his Bugeye to
wires several years ago.
He resolved the issue by pressing the axles out of the wire hubs to extend
the effective length of the axle
to be the same as the steel wheel axle. He indicated that there is plenty
of spline engagement in the hubs
that can be sacrificed for this purpose.
So tonight I pulled the Welch plugs out of my wire wheel axles and did some
comparative measurements
between a standard steel wheel axle and a wire wheel axle.
First off, you need 1 inch of spline engagement on the differential side. I
can see the wear marks on my
standard axle that indicate this.
The wire wheel axle is short by .64 inches. You would only have .36 inches
of spline engagement if you just
swapped them in. Clearly not enough.
There is approximately 1.95 inches of spline engagement of the axle into the
wire wheel hub.
This is plenty to spare, just as Chris indicated.
So tomorrow I am taking my axles over to the machine shop to have them
pressed out the required amount.
One more thing.. The axles are secured to the wire hubs with two or three
very light spot welds.
There are no big side loads here. The spot welds are just to make sure they
don't shift and are
minimal enough to be overcome by the hydraulic press.
I'll have to redo these spot welds when I get the axles back.
One other thing.. One of these guys told me that the front calipers on the
steel wheel cars have a boss
that hits the wire wheels and must be ground off. I don't know if I believe
this but I will cross that bridge
when I come to it.
So do you all see it now? Do you see how the Creator makes the multitude of
barriers in order to
stall/prevent this job from getting done? Do you see how others have tried
and failed?
Do you see the quest? You have to make careful measurements.You have to
conjure up electrical arcs..
travel to the gathering place and consult the tribal elders.listen to the
tales of the fallen.barter with the
blacksmith to make the special armour.etc..etc...
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