My 1919 Model T

Creaking wheels are creepy!

Does it have a starter?  Will it run on the magneto? 

Yup. First year for electric start (I think).

Runs great on battery and on magneto.

It's not just a creak, it's a rattle. I can move the felloe about 1/4" in and out, all the way around.

So just how do you rebuild a wood rim? Is there a school to learn this or just chuck up a piece of wood and start making spokes?

In reply to brad131a4 (Forum Supporter) :

Thankfully, you can buy almost anything for a Model T.

I can buy new hickory spokes for about $14 each. 

The felloe (outer ring) is steel and so is the hub. 

You unbolt the hub from the spokes, pull the spokes out of the felloe and fit new ones.

The old ones will probably just fall out but the new ones will be a very tight fit.

ShawnG said:

 

Aside from being in color, this picture could plausibly have been taken any time in the last 100 years and I might have believed it.

In reply to iansane :

Actually... color photography has been around since 1861. Rare? Certainly. Still possible though. 

(Sorry, my inner nerd is pretty uncontrollable most days)

This photograph was taken by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii in 1909-

In reply to Recon1342 :

There is always something to learn from build threads...

In reply to Recon1342 :

the more you know

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In reply to iansane :

I held this up to show my wife last night and basically said the same as you did!  Timeless picture for sure.

Ok, time for an update.

I need to order T parts for a client so we're going to piggyback some stuff to do my wheels on the order. I'm going to start with rebuilding the rear wheels first as they're the worst.

In 1919 Model T Fords started being equipped with demountable wheels. This means the rim is separate from the wheel and can be unbolted. This means you can carry a fully inflated spare with you and change the rim and tire at the side of the road, rather than having to spoon the tire off and repair the tube, then put it back on.

Ford contracted a few companies to build wheels. Ford also built their own wheels later on. There were also aftermarket companies building wheels. Some of these components interchange but not all of them.

My car is a Canadian built T which means that it got 30 x 3.5" tires on all four corners (this is not the same as modern tire sizing). US made T's got 30 x 3.5" in the rear and 30 x 3" in the front on some years. The fun part is, the 30" is the outside diameter of the tire which means a 30 x 3.5 and a 30 x 3 take different size rims and wheels.

Lots of things change in 100 years so I figured I had better do some digging before I started ordering parts. 

My car has four Kelsey wheels plus a spare rear wheel which is also a Kelsey. I have five rims, four of which are Ford rims and one is a Kelsey rim. Fortunately, Ford rims will bolt to Kelsey wheels and maintain proper engagement. 

I have one other wheel which is buried in a snowbank right now because it was farm yard art when the previous owners hand the place. I can see part of the felloe sticking out of the snow and it has 1/2" tenon holes so it's -probably- a Ford wheel. It probably matches the very dead model T touring body I found in my dump last spring.

Hayes rims will fit Ford wheels but will not fit Kelsey wheels. Fortunately I don't have Hayes wheels.

Now that I have that figured out. I want to do some disassembly to be 100% certain that I'm ordering the right parts.

Here is a Kelsey wheel for 30 x 3.5" demountable rims. This is a rear wheel, it has the brake drum and a tapered bore for the rear axle and keyway. This is my spare wheel which is actually still pretty tight. 

I have some concerns that the taper bore may be worn so when my wheel puller arrives, I will check the fit on the axle on my car.

You can see a couple of the bolts and clamps for the Kelsey wheel system in the picture. Ford rims have lugs that bolt to the wheel, rather than using clamps on a rim with no lugs like the Kelsey system.

Spokes are very rotten. Correct spokes are made from hickory which is what I will be ordering.

Here you can see the brake drum and taper bore for the axle. These drums are for the hand brake only. The foot pedal works the brake band in the transmission.

The bolt threads are upset after the nuts are tightened down so that the nuts can't work themselves loose. Nature's loctite.

I'm using my induction heater to help get everything apart.

Here's the back side of the hub with the brake drum off. There's a plate that goes on the front side which sandwiches the spokes and helps keep everything tight.

The old felt axle seal was stuck to the hub.

Here we are, fully disassembled after knocking the bolts out with my air hammer.

Here's the critical dimension I needed to be 100% sure. Ford felloes are 20-3/4" across inside and Kelsey felloes are 20-13/16" across. Also Ford felloes can have 1/2" or 5/8" tenon holes for the spokes but Kelsey wheels only had 1/2" tenon holes.

Last, here's the final thing that confirms it's a Kelsey felloe. Ford and Hayes wheels have a notch in the outside diameter, next to the bolt hole. The notch accommodates the heel of the Hayes mounting lug on the rim. Kelsey wheels don't have this notch.

I'll be cleaning and painting all the bits next.

I'm going to order new spokes, new hub nuts and bolts and new rim nuts and bolts.

In reply to ShawnG :

Wow... I never knew that the world of Model T wheels was so complicated! Thanks for sharing that. 

So much history. 

The Kelsey and Hayes names sounded familiar, as I would frequently pass a Kelsey-Hayes factory in the town where I grew up-- turns out the companies merged in 1927.

The factory I remember was actually French and Hecht, an ag equipment supplier to that Kelsey-Hayes subcontracted with and eventually bought.
 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

In reply to ShawnG :

Wow... I never knew that the world of Model T wheels was so complicated! Thanks for sharing that. 

There's also the early wood wheels that are not demountable, later wire wheels for 26 and 27. Lots of aftermarket wheels from companies like Houk and Buffalo as well. 

26 and 27 also got bigger brakes that I believe were linked to the foot pedal. I'm not as familiar with the later "Improved" Model T that was available for the last two years of production.

Lots of Model T stuff can get complicated because things got upgraded and improved as things went along. Everything will interchange with a "but".

Example: There's several different rear axle designs and they will all interchange but not all parts within those assemblies will interchange.

History indeed. I worked for Kelsey-Hayes from 1994 until mergers and acquisitions made that name go away. I don't remember what year that was.

Kelsey-Hayes made a ton of stuff too. Not just wheels.

IIRC They introduced a very primitive ABS system which was an option for Lincolns in 1970

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

History indeed. I worked for Kelsey-Hayes from 1994 until mergers and acquisitions made that name go away. I don't remember what year that was.

Found a history--
https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/kelsey-hayes-group-of-companies-history/#google_vignette

That's super neat! The fact that the type of wood used in the spokes makes a notable difference is a cool detail. Sure, it makes sense but I never really thought about what type of wood a 100-year-old wheel would use for spokes. 

So cool. Thanks for the level of detail!

ShawnG said:...

This photo is a little scary.  You're pretty well committed at this point!

Thanks for sharing the detailed process.  I'm enjoying it.

Thanks for documenting your Journey, Shawn!  I'm enjoying it as well :)

I read through this thread again. 

Old cars are still awesome. 

Keep up the good work, Shawn!

In reply to ShawnG :

what brand induction bolt heater do you have? living in the rust belt, i need to add one of these to my toolbox.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ShawnG :

what brand induction bolt heater do you have? living in the rust belt, i need to add one of these to my toolbox.

I bought the "Hot Rod" brand from Amazon. Was about $300 Canuck pesos and well worth it.

Glad you're all enjoying it. 

Sometimes I just work on it thinking "It's just a model T" but then I remember that it's not as familiar for a lot of people so I try to share. Thanks for the enthusiasm.

I'll be ordering bits shortly and I'll have to do some cleanup and painting on the wheel components.

As for the wood, I saw a chart once regarding the strength of wood. Hickory is way, way up there. There's a reason axe handles are made of hickory. Same goes for wheels, it's very strong but can also be flexible enough to handle the stress. 

I was going to try turning my own spokes out of maple since it's pretty much a weed tree in Canada and relatively affordable but it's not nearly strong enough. Neither is oak. I can also tell you, from hand cutting mortises with a mallet and chisel, maple is like cast iron. I can't imagine what hickory is like.

Spokes are about $12us a piece so not worth the trouble.

I'll need to build a spoke press to assemble the wheel. It's just some construction lumber and threaded rod but I may as well build a good one because I might be doing this again in the future.