Wallowed front wheel centers - how to fix?

Rhoderman · #1 12-31-2009, 01:06 PM

My 126 has bad front wheel bearings, so I bought a set and started to put them in. The front wheels are really wallowed out, and one "tube" is shorter than the other by about 1/8". I measured one at 2 3/4, and the other at 2 5/8.

I found some thick walled tubing that's about the right 1 3/8 ID, but lots thicker. I was going to cut out the original tube part and put in a new one, but I got to wondering if maybe I could simply lay the new over the top. Kind of like:

The tubing I found is easily twice the thickness of the original tubing. And, I think I could even weld this without demounting the tires. It would be fairly easy to use a portable grinder to trim it back "more than enough" and lay the new collar on, true it up, and weld it.

Anybody see any problems with this approach? Or has someone tried something different that worked even better (short of new wheels of course!)?

Jim

Yosemite Sam · #2 12-31-2009, 02:31 PM

I know it's not what you are wanting to hear but if you have the wide wheels on your 126 I'm betting that there are members here that have piles of them laying around that they would sell you cheap if you put an ad in the "wanted" section.

Rhoderman · #3 12-31-2009, 09:36 PM

I'm pretty sure they are narrow wheels. Not that I'd know the difference for sure, but I believe they are 4.00-8, or something like that. They do look narrower than what's on my 122, but it might be an optical delusion. I should go check for sure.

Will narrow and wide wheels interchange on the front, or are the spindles different? The tires aren't all that great, so they are on the short list. I'd like to find some ribs for this 126. Do those go better on wide or narrow?

Thanks for your help!

Jim

Rhoderman · #4 12-31-2009, 09:40 PM

These are narrow, right?

camarokidz28 · #5 12-31-2009, 10:23 PM

Yes they are .

Rhoderman · #6 01-02-2010, 01:00 PM

Well, as it turns out, my lame idea from above wouldn't work since there isn't enough tube sticking out to allow me to cut it back and weld on a new piece.

For the one that was the worst, I chucked up a piece of pipe in the lathe and turned it down to replace the missing metal (about 1/8" of length and varying diameters. That's the top piece below. I'll have a buddy weld this in today. I'm thinking a bunch of spot welds should do the trick since I'm afraid it would burn through quickly.

I had two other bearings where they had simply gotten a lot larger over the years/miles. For those, I bore miked what was there and made a spacer shim with a small flange out of a piece of iron pipe. These are a tight slip fit for the bearing and a slight press fit to go in the hub. I've already got these together and they look like they'll work.

However, I have a question about the bearings as they go onto the spindle. Since they aren't tapered, they should have no preload, right? Should I make a spacer as required to achieve about 10 to 20 thou of "float"? Right now, I know the bearings are a bit farther apart than spec due to my flanges on my shims. I'm thinking a spacer slightly smaller than 3/4, with a 3/8 hole in it should be easy to make. I can put the wheel on, measure the depth to the end of the spindle, add .020 and call it good.

Thanks all for the input. I did find a set of wheels for a bit more than 50 each, but right now I'll try to make this work. I have other things I need to spend my cash on, like beer and pretzels.