MTFCA Forum

I was visiting a local fellow today looking for some t wheels and was surprised to see a ruxtell laying over in a pile of junk. At first he said he wouldn't sell it but the more we talked he indicated that he might be willing to let it go. My question is, are there any specific things that i should check out on it or ways to determine if it is serviceable before making an offer. It appears to be complete and has no apparent breaks or cracks. The driveshaft and brake drums are still on it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and God Bless,

Joshua A Powers

I'd be offering a price that would allow for a full rebuild in your budget.

offer him two prices- taken apart and inspected or as-is. Parts add up quick $$ wise but USUALLY if there is grease/oil in it chances are pretty good that nothing is unuseable.

FWIW, the Rux on my car looked good from the outside, but I had to replace virtually every component to make it right. Serious $$$$$$. At least I have a good understanding of the mechanical aspects gained through rebuilding it. An expensive education which can be fun, if you like that sort of thing. It is easy to get under water with these. Cheers, Bill

If its an original then IMHO its worth more. Usually the sun gear pins are wore out, thrust washer pins sheared and special bearing needs replacing along with what ever needs to be done with the stock pinion bearing. $300.00 worth of parts or so. That special bearing is the most expensive item. I am told the repop jobs have a problem where the ring gear bolts are and must be ground or something to work right.

I second the recommendation to make an offer assuming it will need a full rebuild.

My brother, a long-time forum member here, recently rebuilt his. Here is his post of lessons learned. Not definitive by any means, but what he ran across. Might be or interest in reading. He's an engineer, so gets into the technical stuff a little more than some.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17157&p=129806#p129806

Andy

The ring for the ball wouldn't fit over the tube and slide up??

I've bought, sold, rebuilt, etc over 75 Ruckstells.
The way I see it, the housing and shift lock are worth 4-500 bucks. Everything good is a bonus.

If you have to have new perfect parts, buy a new one. If you are comfortable with some wear, rebuild an old one, put a new bronze thrust plate and bearing in it, everything else is probably OK for driver quality.

So I offer $500 and roll the dice.
A new kit is $2800.
Check your purse and your gambling fever and roll em.

I've bought some that were like new and some that weren't.

I like ones that were under a trailer.

All great responses. assume it needs everything.
The only way to know is tear it down & measure the wear.
You can look at axle shafts for wear/damage, threads.
If you can pull drive shaft, look @ gears & metal in the lube.
Shifter arm wear.
All to get a general guess @ its condition, but its still a PIG IN A POKE.

If you separate out the normal rear end parts and service in the example above, the Ruxtell end of the job was relatively minor. Stan makes a good point also.

I quit worrying about the internal parts after about the first dozen or so I bought to rebuild. This is probably 20 years ago. The main parts will be in there. Unless you are drop dead lucky, some will need to be replaced. My advice to anybody rebuilding a Ruckstell is this:

REPLACE THE BRONZE PLATE. Don't screw around trying to press it into shape, get the clearance right, machine the bearing mount, etc. just buy a new one. It is one of two pieces that aligns everything else in the unit.

REPLACE THE THRUST BEARING. With an American made correct number bearing. My personal preference is a SKF 7212 BECBY, which is American made, 40 degree angular thrust. You can buy them off ebay for 30-100 bucks depending on the day. If that bearing is not correct the rest of it won't fit together right. The bearing and thrust plate control the ring gear position.

Then check the other stuff and decide what you can live with and what you can't. If you want perfection you shouldn't have bought an old one. If you have a lathe and some skills you can pretty much cure problems with worn triple pin holes, the worn thrust hole in the bell, etc. For $100 you can replace the triple gears and the pins. I do it as a matter of course.

Rebuild the shift lock.

If you do all this work and don't replace the axles with new ones you are just asking for problems down the road.

Check the housings for straight. If they aren't, figure out where they are off and straighten them.

95% of problems with people not being able to get the Hyatts in the sleeves are because they did not do a good job cleaning out the end of the axle tube where the sleeve fits in. Get in the with a cylinder hone and knock the rough edges off. There is no reason why the sleeves themselves have to be hones.

Flat rate for installing Ruckstell kit in a Ford dealership was 45 minutes. It can't be too tough. They are Model T's, not LeMans racers.

Back to the shop.