Front Wheel Construction

 Please note that this Blog is slightly technical and is more a show and tell of the modification of the front hub. If you are interested there are enough details to see how this has been achieved, but basically we modified a 7" Web hub and fitted Timkin bearings to suit.  The problem we have with the original set of wheels for the Invincible Jap is lack of functional brakes. Wheel as found    There are absolutely no brakes on the original front wheel and only one band on the external of the rear wheel. While these were  functional in 1925, it was decided to modify these to a functional specifications for 2012 and retain the originals. Please note that the forks on the Invincible Jap are an Australian copy of the Henderson set up so might help another Henderson owner somewhere. I obtained a Webb 7" front wheel less bearings, lased to rim at the last swap meet from a vendor for sensible dollars along with brake shoes and plate. The wheel is shown opposite. This hub is far to wide but will provide the base and brake drum for the front wheel. It was decided that we would fit Timkin Taper bearings, modern rubber seals and narrow the flange down to obtain the width required. With the spokes remove (Bolt Cutters) the hub was narrowed and the smaller spoke flange bored to slip back on the centre of the existing hub's spool. The bearings and seal diameters were turned in the same set up and the brake drum face skimmed to ensure concentricity. Hub modified Indian 741 scout front wheel bearings were chosen and these were on the shelf so were suitable for the task. As it worked out we only required 0.035 " to be bored out of the diameter to fit. A custom inner axle quill was made to fill in the gaps with new lock nuts and seal bearing surface nuts also machined. Once all this was machined, we assembled the front hub and checked for uniformity (central latitude) between the front forks. This is important as ideally we wanted the rim to be laced with Zero offset. (ie central to the flanges)  Quill Details  The three photos below show the hub in position and fitted. The hub flanges were made to be central to the fork blades and this hub is basically finished with the exception of the brakes and rim. This will be the basis of another blog.