Star hub rebuild

[VintageTwin]

Description: Where and how is this measurement taken

Bought an AM inner retainer in Feb., '00 that was made, at least, too tall. The new standard rollers (measure .250" thick) will fit into the cage, but as as a "bearing assembly", it will not drop into the bottom recess of the left-side hub. The rollers have to be loaded individually into the installed cage, and once there, are impossible to turn with your fingers wedged in there. Then, when you install the bearing retaining washer (covers the exposed ends of the rollers in the cage) the washer covers up the lower snap-ring groove.
The old rollers are a little pitted on at least one end and measure .248" wide. The new (standard size) rollers measure .250". So, the side of the rollers wore .002" in thirty years. The old rollers racked loose in the old retainer. The old rollers are .525" high. The new rollers measure .573. That's a height difference of .048", and... "they wear on the ends too. That's what their suppose to do. Some people just take the oversize bearings and put them in the old retainers", so said Kick-Start Chuck. I also bought the AM (small) (star cover side) bearing retainer in '00. It has the too thick looking base, same as the (bogus) large, inner retainer has but I haven't tried to fit it into the star side of the hub.
I have a set of .0004" oversize rollers on hand (an act of God, or "them" knowing what I needed better than I did, because I ordered .0002" o.s. and they sent me .0004" o.s.) that I put into the old cage and the rollers were a nice slide-fit, as one assembly, into the left hub. The old retainer is pretty thin at the base so I am waiting on new AM retainers Chuck sent me to compare. If his retainer bases are not much thicker than the old ones I have, then I may go with my .0004" oversize rollers in my old retainers.
Question is: How do I measure what the '59 H-D service manual says as "select roller size that will give .001" to .0015" clearance". Where and how is this measurement taken? With rollers installed in the cage and using a plunger dial indicator/w/ stand? Or, with a feeler guage between the roller and inside surface of the hub once the cage and rollers are installed?
The answer is: You have to measure the bore of the hub with a inside "T" guage and a math formula to calculate a "running fit" and I need to work it out on the phone with Stett.
Try an rebuild a hub following the H-D manual, but don't follow the diagram on page 2C-3. Not drawn exactly as a true in-line assembly. The washer/retainer that goes on the extreme left end of the hub under the top snap-ring has a stepped side that should be pointed outward and in the place of where they have "15. Retaining Washer." And don't e-ven try to rebuild a hub following the Clymer manual. They call something one thing in print and the same thing something else in a diagram. We'll have it laid out differently in our next book, and the roller fit formula, unless someone else pops up with the information.

[Jonderson]

I have noticed that many AM star hub rebuild kits have components which are sized differently than original parts. My 63 needed the rear hub rebuilt a couple years ago and after going through all the crap VT mentions above I have to say that if/when I need to do it again, I am just going to replace the whole hub. Then when I have the time (ha-ha) I can scrounge around and dink with finding the right rollers, etc. Then I will rebuild the old hub and save it or sell it to someone who needs one. I hate working with both hands full of grease and the phone under my ear.

[57stroker]

Or, you could forget the loose roller idea completely and bore the hub for sealed bearings. The "Custom Chopper Cookbook" by Mike Geokan explains how and gives most of the dimensions and the bearing numbers.

[haggis]

Vintage T
You probally know this already and so will a great many others in here.........
Me I learnt by putting this 50 el back together from a basket.......
Nothing ...and I mean nothing..available on the after market fits.........if you dont cut, bend, grind or otherwise beat the crap out of it !!!.......
Mind you, I guess thats half the fun!
Happy pounding , Haggis

[dereborn]

I guess the wrong specs of aftermarket stuff gets clearly visible when we're dealing with pretty tight measurements, as in this case... I got new sleeves, retainers, rollers etc. before this season. Ended up with same discovery as VT - it was too tight... In my case, the solution was keeping the old rollers (after inspection of course - they seem to have been replaced earlier), and when fitting them into the new retainer and sliding them onto the new sleeve it was a beautiful fit!

[VintageTwin]

Frankenstein
Member posted
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The old time dealers would have a variety of rollers on hand. They'd fit clean. dry. parts with over size rollers 'till they had a "Plug" fit, I.E., no clearance between parts. Then fit rollers just enough smaller to give the clearance, i.e., .0005 under from the plug fit rollers to get .001 clearance. Empirical, but practial. Most of us don't have all those rollers kicking around. Dick

amklyde
unregistered posted 09 September 2003 16:15
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Plumber, You need to measure the outside diameter of the inner sleeve races with a micrometer and the inside diameter of the races with a telescoping (or snap guage) and a mic or, if one is available, a dial bore gauge. Be sure and measure various places in the race to find the smallest i.d. and fit your bearings to this size. If you can find some one to accurately hone the holes to round that is preferable, but the drum side requires a 1.750 blind hole mandrel which most machine shops won't have. Up to .001 out of round is tolerable with a wheel hub. Determine bearing size as you thought, by subtracting o.d. of the inner race size + .001 for clearance, from the i.d of the hub race. Divide that number by 2 to get bearing size. Many of the aftermarket bearing cages have the holes for the bearings located incorrectly, bored to the inside or ouside of center. If the holes are inside the bearing assembly will be tight on the inner race, outside tight to the race in the hub.This must be corrected. I use old bearings and a used up inner race. I apply lapping compound to the bearings and sleeve and spin it with the lathe to open the bearing holes up a bit. The bigger the o/s bearings the more the trouble. If your old cages can be cleaned up, use em. As you mentioned, the cages are taller, having a thicker area on the closed end of the cage and this can cause spacing problems.

They way the hub rebuild played out for me was: Don't waste your time trying to fit o.s. rollers in old retainers. There were so many inner (large) retainers dumped on the market that you need to get these parts from someone you can reach. That would be Chuck-Start. I used his import retainers and standard .250" rollers and everything fit perfect. Get the inner and outer corks from him too.The ones in some of these kits are dried out and crack when you try to push them into the hub. There's no salvaging them either. I tried soaking them in Armor-All® and heating them in the microwave for 20 seconds. Softened them up some, but if their brittle, their junk. Basically, I have found that the large inner retainers and the inner (large) cork is junk. Everybody that sells the small roller retainers has good ones and the small corks are good, but the large retainers you should buy form the same person that answers the phone. Chuck won't even take back bad ones, so find a supplier like him. And get your large corks from a manufctur. that is proud enough of them, to put his name on them, like Gary Bang®.

[haggis]

Vintage
Chucks parts book is the best damn read I ever saw!!!!
Theres a whole pile of cool old stuff in there!, the info alone is a blast to read!!! Haggis

[VintageTwin]

Yeah, Haggis. The perceived value of dealing with a one-man shop like Chuck is that you are getting his expert mechanical opinion. Beats spinning the roulette wheel at the mercy of whoever is pulling parts off a shelf to fill your order.

[suicideshovel65]

For the benefit of those of us still wet behind the ears...who is Chuck, and what's the name of the shop etc? Any URL info?

Cheers,

S.

[VintageTwin]

Web-less Chuck @ Kick-Start (616) 245-8991 open 10 to 5 (EST) Knuckle and Flathead, some Pan (but only if the part crossed over from Knuckle).

[Jonderson]

For Pan stuff in the same geographical area (SW Michigan) Lonnie at http://www.antiquecyclesupply.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has just about everything. Get his catalog anyway, it has a lot of good mech. diagrams.