Re: Starter Field Coils and also Wheel Straightening

Posted by Mike Flanagan on April 06, 1998 at 00:27:31

In Reply to: Starter Field Coils and also Wheel Straightening
posted by Neil MacGregor on April 05, 1998 at 13:15:19

I can't help you with the article but perhaps with the wheel straightening. If you are talking about "Model A Wobble" this can be worked out with a little patience and some heat on the spokes. If you aren't familiar with heat and it's effects on steel then this probably should be left to someone who is. Find a member of your club who is a welder and he'll know what I'm talking about.
When steel is heated it expands. When the heated steel is cooled rapidly (quenched) it contracts but to a greater degree than that to which it expanded. By applying this practice to various spokes the wheel can be brought into tolarence. Care must be taken not to heat the steel excessively or past the point of elasticity. A dull red is as hot as you should go. Any hotter and the material reaches a state the engineers refer to as plastic... you can figure that out easily enough. Once there the steel will not return to it's former shape or molecular structure.
Try it on a wheel that is to far gone to matter. Just put the crooked wheel on a front corner of an A you know to have a hub and brake drum that are true and give 'er a spin. Use a jack stand as a reference and locate the bad spots. Now it's a matter of deciding which spokes, if shortened a small amount, would effect the desired result.
I have straightened the wheels cold on a steel table with a piece of all thread through the table and through a lugnut hole but the results are not as good. Besides I like to wave a burning torch around in a shop full of flammable materials... it don't do much for my life insurance salesman though!
God Speed under 50.
The Model A Fool.
: I'm struggling to remove the field coil screws-three are loose -fourth's a bugger-but a friend warns me I'll have even more trouble trying to get the field coils back in place.Is this true? What's the secret to drawing them back up in place?
: Second Question:There was a reference recently on this board, about wheel straightening.I believe it referred to a recent article in The Restorer Magazine.Can't find that reference.Can anyone help?
: Thanks again
:Neil

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