Rims, Hubs, and Spokes

A little Friday afternoon quality shop time

After the first couple of rides in July, 2022 we had a setback when we discovered 5 broken spokes on the front wheel. Summer slipped away with events, picnics, and the darned boating weekends and it was November before we had spokes in-hand and I re-laced and trued the front wheel.

While at the front, I also removed the other two wheels and checked those out. During this time, friends Chris and Steve helped overhaul the electric lighting—as seen in some of the photos.

This was the end of January and all wheels were trued up. Upon initial reassembly, I paused to have a look at the breaks. The shoes were completely worn! Got some good advice in the social media communities that lead me to Mike at Vintage Brakes (http://vintagebrake.com/) in Sonora, CA. I learned that to do this right, I needed to send him the front wheel drum brake and hub. The hub is laced into the wheel! Doh!! So off it came and we shipped out both front & rear brake shoes and drums. Mike figured he’d need 4-5 weeks and he delivered returning the parts by mid-March.

Once all put back together, a few first rides proved once again that drum brakes just don’t have a lot of stopping power. We’re also finding our top speed peaking out at 42 MPH and that the carb is running pretty rich. Once we get that sorted, we might get a little more speed, but I suspect that between the sprocket gearing and drum brakes, we will have some challenges getting up to 50 MPH.