What do the vintage gang do when adding rear wheel spacers to wheels that have half the valve stem hole in each wheel half? Those beautiful CT wheels that George Sellon gave me for the Photon have that exact issue. When I built the Mike Burke Van Tech, I made water jet cut rear wheel spacers. I cut the other half of the valve stem hole in the wheel spacer, and made a dam of thin aluminum backed by waxed paper, and taped it to the inner surface of the inner wheel half. I then filled the little half hole with JB Weld. After it cured, I dressed it smooth and painted the wheel half. It worked fine, but I was wondering if there might be a better (meaning easier) way? By the way, Will Rogers' cast spacers are perfect-better than my water jet cut ones were. Ted
Ted I would tig braze up the part you aren't going to use instead of JB weld or if you don't have tig, there is
that aluma-weld alloy that you can use with a low heat burner that works well with die-cast parts....it's all
about the prep for good results.
Are you going to water-jet some new spacers for the CT wheels ?
If those CT's are some mystery mag material.....you better find a pro to do this for you or just use what you know
will not make a mess of your wheels .
So much for advice, I have some Go Powers that are in need of restoration....so I was just going to find some rear outer wheel half's, but finding them is not so easy......so back to welding and lathe work.....all I need is a " round to-it " !
Randy, we don't know whether these are almag alloy or what. The only welder I trust in AZ would be Ben Herr, and I don't feel well enough to drive 130 miles round trip to get to Chandler. There's nobody anywhere near here that I would trust for wheels this rare. Will Rogers has the spacers cast for the CT wheels. He usually drills them for the locating pins and bolts, but we decided to drill them here. I have the Nylon or Delrin spacers that were already in the wheels. They are very well machined, so I can use them as drill guides. I will do this tomorrow, and paint them the next day. I still have to buy the rear tires and tubes. I keep forgetting to do it. TJ
I used JB weld on mine about 6 or 7 years ago and they are holding up just fine. I built it up some in the inside so there was good coverage, not just the thickness of the half hole.
06-14-2017, 07:25 AM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2017, 07:27 AM by ted johnson.)
Thanks, Stan. I just decided to use the JB Weld like you. The wheel section is thicker than Go Power, so I roughed the edge of the half hole and the surrounding area. I used brake cleaner to ensure the cleanliness of the surface. The epoxy's as hard as a rock this morning. A short job to dress down the very tiny bulge on the tube surface of the wheel with the little Proxxon mini belt sander, some self-etch primer and a bit of g0ld paint, and they'll be good for years. Wish I could be at Fremont with you and Joel, buddy! Ted
Stan, Doc is planning to remove my spleen. He says it should do wonders for the Leukemia. Charlie and I are talking about Fremont 2018.
If you get out this way, Come on down! I'm always glad to see you, and there's a good Cracker Barrel right by the Interstate in Casa Grande. Ron Cubel lives about 3/4 of a mile from there, too. If you were here in October, you could make Dean Kanocz' event at the big P1 track in Tucson. Man, you have never driven a smoother track with covered grid, real bathrooms and a covered eating area. Dean puts out a barbecue about equal to Jim Donovan's, too. Ted
Jimmy, aren't these just ring spacers with "ears" to go around the three bolts? If they're like their spacers were years ago, they'll work fine. As far as the axle goes, the extra width is all to the inside of the wheel, and the outer half stays where it originally was. Maybe I'm missing something> Have they made a new type of spacer at Azusa?
I got my Will Rogers CT spacers drilled this morning by the visual alignment/touchie-feelie method. They seem just fine, and line up as well as did the old plastic spacers. I taped the plastic spacers to the new aluminum ones with double sided foam tape and used the tight holes in the plastic spacers as drill guides. Ted
It does seem like you'd want to have the wheel and tire assembly on an axle before final tightening of the wheel hardware to avoid any potential misalignment. I do that now even without spacers.
