MTFCA Forum

A friend of mine has a 24 touring car. The car has the correct 30 x 3 1/2 wheels. Both back wheels on the car have loose spokes and need to be rebuilt and the front wheels are not far behind. I have built about a dozen 21" wheels which are all still good and tight so I thought this should be easy. Of course, we ran into a problem. The ford produced felloes are 20 3/4 ID while the Kelsey and hayes wheels are 20 13/16. That means the Ford spokes are 1/32 shorter than the Kelsey and hayes spokes. Believing we had identified the felloes as being ford produced we ordered new ford spokes. Upon pressing the wheel together we quickly realized that the spokes were too short. We then pressed the wheel together using some brand new kelsey spokes I had purchased for my 23 runabout project and found that those spokes were also too short eventhough they're 1/32 longer than the Ford spokes! We found afterwards the name hayes stamped in the felloe. I'm stumped. The Kelsey Hayes spokes should be correct for this wheel, but they are obviously too short. It took no effort to press the wheel together and there is a slight gap between the end of the spokes and the felloe. Did hayes make felloes with a larger ID than the typical 30 13/16? Are new spokes available for these wheels? Any insight would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Stephen

I ran into this when I cut the tenions on some unfinished spokes I had gotten using a spoke from one of the suppliers as a master. What I ended up doing was adding spacer washers between the felloe and spoke. Not the best solution but worked.

Very odd! Like Steve, I built up a set of wheels a few years ago with the 1/32 inch longer spokes and they came out fine. I used Kelsey felloes and ended up selling the wheels to another member before I mounted them on my car. A link to my wheel buildup is here:

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/41 ... 1404960383

Just brainstorming here - stack one of the new Ford spokes on top of one of the new Kelsey spokes and confirm that the Kelsey spokes you have are indeed 1/32" longer, maybe the supplier accidently sent you Ford spokes instead of Kelsey spokes.

If you confirm that the new Kelsey spokes you have are indeed 1/32 inch longer than the new Ford spokes, then you may have to make custom spokes that are longer yet. Maybe one of the suppliers can provide spoke blanks without the tenons turned in them and you can have the tenons turned yourself or by a friend with a wood lathe.

If you indeed have Hayes metal felloes and the correct length spokes, then I'm at a bit of a loss as to why the spokes are too short.

I suppose it's remotely possible that the felloe may have had such tight spokes pressed in it some time in the past that the felloe is no longer round, but each hole has been pushed out slightly until the felloe is a now a 12 sided polygon with a hole at each vertex.

Please post some pictures and keep us updated on what you find!