Story and photos by Mark Wing

Projects at this work party included rebuilding the front end of Stan Gauna’s depot hack, discovering the source of a wobble in Mark Wing’s Ruckstell rebuilding project, and replacing an inner tube on Kirk Peterson’s Model T coupe.

Stan Gauna was having a shimmy problem with his 1917 depot hack so a front end rebuild was in order.  With assistance from his fellow club members, the front spindles were re-bushed, drag link straightened and adjusted, and toe-in set.  With several members working on the front end, and under Larry’s guidance, the project was finished in the afternoon and Stan was able to take it on a test drive later in the day.

Mark and Larry had been working on Mark’s Ruckstell Axle project on and off for over a year.  A large drum Ruckstell is slated for a 1925 touring car project that will have large drum disc brakes.  During the process of dry fitting and measuring the Ruckstell components, a wobble in the ring gear was detected. The ring gear mounts to a Ruckstell bell housing (P159) which was new so a defect seemed unlikely.  The housing was removed and Larry carefully centered it on his large lathe.  Once the exterior of the housing was centered, and he confirmed that all outer-diameter surfaces were concentric, Larry measured the center hole that is the bearing surface for the tapered axle shaft gear.  It turned out that this center hole was offset from the machined outer surfaces by 0.022″.  This runout accounted for the ring gear wobble and, within a week of this work party, the parts supplier had replaced the defective bell housing.

To further improve the performance and reliability of the Ruckstell Axle, Larry measured the bronze thrust washer (P139) parallelism to the ball bearing (P211).  Even after assuring that the two parts were pressed together firmly, there was still a 0.008″ height difference in the surfaces.  To correct this problem, Larry faced off the bronze thrust washer after carefully considering how to chuck the bronze thrust washer/ball bearing subassembly into the lathe.  Naturally the ball bearing would want to rotate so Larry used a bolt and clamp to stop the rotation during machining.  With a new bell housing and the bronze thrust washer/ball bearing subassembly now perfectly parallel, the Ruckstell dry-fitting can proceed!

Kirk brought his spare tire from “Buster”, his barn-fresh looking 1925 coupe, to the work party.  The inner tube was flat and repairs were in order.  It was very difficult to remove the tire from the rim and Mark Dominguez, Eddie Paquette, and Kirk worked on the project.

Thank you very much to Larry for another enjoyable and productive Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque Work Party!