The Alexander Chapter-NRHS, in addition to our boxcar projects, is currently restoring ET&WNC #1 motorcar from standard to narrow gauge. This car, along with sister #2, was built by the railroad in the Johnson City, TN shops.

Anyway, we have a couple of questions:

a) What would the ideal gauge be between the flanges? The wheel/tire surface is about 3.5". We were considering 35.5".

b) The front wheels of the car are 21" diameter, the rear wheels are 22". All four are stamped. One of the wheels has a noticeably thin flange. Any idea where to get stamped wheels of this size?

Thanks in advance,

Matt Bumgarner

.

Motorcar wheels are generally gauged over the face of the wheels. Pressed wheels make gauging simple, hook the end of a tape measure to one face and measure across to the other wheel face. For standard guage, 14" wheels should measure 62-13/16" face to face, 16" wheels should measure 62-15/16" face to face. This allows the wheels to be slightly under-gauge for variations in track. A good source of information on motorcars is the NARCOA website. There are many technical articles dealing all types of motorcars and problems encountered with them. Several people involved in the organization have norrow-gauged their standard gauge motorcars and they might be of some help.

As to wheels being 21" or 22" diameter, they must be odd-ball older wheels. Most wheels made in the past 4 decades are either 14", 16", or 20" diameter. They are made in either pressed steel or cast steel. Many track machines use these wheels, other than motorcars so perhaps a source could be a track equipment dealer.

Good luck with your restoration.

Rob
Fairmont, PA

We'd need to know a lot more about the motorcar, assuming we're talking about a "Fairmont Speeder" and not a doodlebug.

I am surprised to hear about 21" wheels. There is a standard for 20" wheels, which come in two flavors - stamped or cast. I could be wrong but I don't believe stamped are made anymore. Cast are about $900/wheel. They share one standard bolt pattern, an 8-bolt circle. Some installations only use four of the eight bolts, however a 20" wheel probably uses all eight.

If you see rivets where the bolts ought to be, then you are dealing with something fairly historic that's outside my experience.

Again - oodles of advice from NARCOA, or the Yahoo group
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/R ... intenence/
they can help.

This "motorcar" is really a damn small trolley! That's what most folks think anyway.

www.tarheelpress.com/etwnc1

The wheels are a hybird shop-built Ford wheel hub with some sort of pressed wheel tire assembled on them. There are some photos on the website of them.

Since they are so unique, and we don't have a real clue of how to replace them, we are considering adding material to the tires and flanges with a cold-arc welder and then turn and reprofile the wheels.

We do anticipate running the car at a couple of venues, though not at any great speed or under any great load.

Anybody see problems with what has been suggested on the wheels?

Thanks

Matt Bumgarner

.

If you can post some pictures it would help. Just for the information of people on the board here, I recently priced a set of 20" motor car wheels from Fairmont-Tamper and they came back at $2000 EACH! not including shipping. You might be better off to see if you can find a used set of 20" stamped wheels somewhere that you can mount on the existing axles or new axles.

You can see photos of the wheels and the whole project at

www.tarheelpress.com/etwnc1

Thanks

Matt

Matt,

I have just returned from the museum, and could not find any steel tires of the size that you need. I do have a suggestion, however. We have a number of old stamped 20" wheels (diameter of the tread) with the center bearings worn out. I think that a good machine shop could cut out the center bearings of these wheels and install your Ford truck wheel centers instead, so that they would bolt back on to your car. You might want to check this method out with someone and let me know if you would be interested. That way all of your wheels would be the same size, and of a size that replacements could be obtained.

Everett Lueck

Well, the obvious solution is to have locomotive style tires made. I am sure a similar procedure for sweating the tires on and off would work just fine. Just have the new tire ID machined the same as the originals. I didn't go to the second link, but I have a question. Is the wheel center diameter the same on the front and rear with the difference being the tire diameter?

Best,
Mike

Can't picture a heavy sweated steel ring shrunk onto a spindly pressed plate center without simply crushing it. I'd vote for exchanging the hub mounts of yours out into the pressed wheels previously offered, assuming they are equally heavy duty.

Just a centering and welding job at worst. A decent machine shop with old manual tools (and old manual machinists as well) could do it.

dave

Everett-

Thanks for your offer, that really sounds like the way to do. We were also looking at a submersible arc-weld to build up the surface and then turn the wheels, but I like the idea of using the center hubs.

I'll check the inside diameter on the wheels over the weekend, assuming we don't get snowed out Saturday.

Thanks! and thanks to everyone else for their input and suggestions as well.

Matt Bumgarner

Dave,
Just because the procedure is similar doesn't mean the interference fit would be. I happen to know that a similar procedure has been used with great success (with the addition of dry ice) to mount locomotive wheel centers to axles rather than using a press and risk breaking or cracking a very expensive wheel center or galling a freshly machined axle. Wooden wagon wheels use the same procedure, but obviously not the same fit. This is why I indicated using the ID of the removed tire as the reference to determining fit.

I'd be willing to venture that two guys with rosebud torches could get the tire hot enough to slip off.

The wheels in question are Ford Truck wheels, that someone has welded or somehow attached a railroad type flanged tire on to. Looking at the website, I sort of thing that what Dave and I suggest might be the best thing to make work, as we would be using and old railcar pressed wheel which could be welded to the existing truck wheels. However, if the wheels truly have like 1" thick cast steel tires, and the truck wheels are press fit into these or something akin to that, then this idea would not work, and the other suggestions would be better.

Matt, assuming that you are not snowed out, if you could take some pictures of both sides, back and front of the wheels, and post them, it would be a big help as to what the best alternatives might be.

If you will write me a private message with your email, I will be able to send you pictures of the type wheels that I have, just for your reference.

Everett

There is/was a shop in Shreveport, LA. that does re-welding of wheels as used on track equipment. I have taken several wheels, from the regulator I operated, to this shop. He did wheel re-builds for UP, BN and other rails. I will have a look next time I go into Shreveport and find out if he is still in business.
Harry Nicholls