MTFCA Forum

Another question. Front wheel has a 1/2 inch wobble in roughly 18 inches around the circumference. Other thread have said to remove tire, loosen all the bolts to the hub, "encourage" the wheel flat on a flat surface, and re-tighten. Anyone have a method that has worked for them?

John

I presume your 1915 Ford has non-demountable wheels.

It is possible to fine-tune and true-up non-demountable wheels, assuming the rim is not bent or sprung.

Jack up the wheel. Keep the wheel on the car and remove the tire.

Put some sort of reference such as a block of wood on the floor. Turn the wheel and use a ruler in conjunction with the block of wood on floor to determine the run-in or run-out of the rim.

Rotate the wheel so the area with run-in or run-out is at the bottom of the wheel. Lower the wheel so the the weight of the car holds the rim against the floor. Take a block of wood and hammer and tap on the outside of the felloe to correct run-in, tap the inside of the felloe to correct run-out. With the weight of the car holding the rim against the floor, when tapping on the felloe the rim should stay stationary while felloe moves. As needed, jack up the car, rotate the wheel and lower the car to make more adjustments, etc.

The above comes right out of the Dyke's manual. My father and I used this method to fine-tune the wheels of his 1917 touring after we had tightened them up (we removed the rims, installed veneer shim around the circumference of the felloes, heated and shrunk the rims back onto the wheels and aligned the rim to the felloe by lining up all the original rivet holes with drifts, etc.). We installed the rivets after we made sure the wheels/rims where true and then checked them again for trueness after we installed the rivets and made minor adjustments if needed.

You can also remove the wheel from the car and put the wheel in a horizontal position and tap on the felloe with a hammer and block of wood. It's easy with the inside of the wheel on the floor. However, with the outside facing the floor, you have to contend with the hub so you need to devise a way to rest the rim on an elevated surface while you do the tapping.

Note: it is the pressure of the rim against the felloe that primarily holds the wheel together, not the rivets. The rivets keep the rim centered on the felloe, but should not be relied upon to keep the wheel intact.

Thanks Erik, Your method do you loosen the hub bolts? Also, it sounds counter intuitive to me, for my wheel that has a half inch run out I would tap the inside of the fellow?

John

On a demountable, would it work if you used a rim without a tire and set it on the floor ??
Hitting the felloe only ?

Are non-demountable all wood felloes ?

The method above is for wood felloe, non-demountable wheels. Hub bolts should be tight. All you are doing is slightly changing the position of the felloe on the rim.

As far as the hub is concerned: if you believe the hub is causing wobble, you can remove the bolts and rotate the hub so it is in a different position and then reinstall the bolts and see if that makes any difference.