Right then lets have a look at the Ariel Huntmaster wheels. Well apart from the tyres, inner tubes, rims, spokes, bearings, brake shoe linings and sprocket stubs all being well goosed they are not too bad !
My first job was to remove the rotten tyre's and inner tubes, then I always measure the hub offset before cutting the spokes out to remove the hub, this measurement is crucial for rebuilding the wheel, in this case the distance from the rim to the outside of the hub on the brake plate side is "5/16" of an inch. I will check this is correct later, measuring offsets differs from wheel to wheel.
To measure your wheel offset lay a straight piece of steel across the hub (as pic) and measure the gap between the underside of the steel and the outer edge of the rim and this is your offset. My front was "5/16" but the rear was "0". This is not a hard and fast measurement, your Huntmaster might be a little different. As my new rims are the same width as the old ones this offset measurement is fine, just be aware that if you are buying new rims that are wider than the originals you will need to compensate for this in your offset. I was just about to start cutting the old spokes out when I noticed that some had been welded in, with this build things like this no longer surprise or shock me as there is something with every single part of this bike that is broken, wrong or just plain worn out.
Right then rims and spokes removed and hubs cleaned up, time to remove those stripped sprocket studs that were doing nothing at all to keep the rear sprocket on securely.
"Now where did I put those Imperial stillson's ?" These studs are held in place by small steel pins which I have drilled out, not sure if this is the right thing to do but could not see any other way of removing them. So that done I can now remove the old studs with my trusty Imperial stillson's ha ha.
A new 7/16 x 14 tpi tap on order just to clean all the threads up and an appointment booked with my engineer to make some new studs (as these are not readily available off the shelf) I sat down and had a cup of tea took a deep breath and wondered "why me ?"
Brake plate's now fully stripped and ready for a damn good clean, just so you know the brake adjuster is removed by screwing it clockwise from the front and removing it from the back of the brake plate. I will need to send the shoe's for re-lining as the front pair are full of oil and the rear pair are de-laminating.
New parts for the wheel re-build arrived the other day, chrome rims, stainless spoke kit's and bearings. I have powder coated the hubs silver.
So what has been done to the wheels, well I have soft blasted the hubs and had them powder coated silver so they will be very easy to keep clean, I have upgraded the old 9 gauge spokes to a much more robust 8 gauge stainless steel set and used chrome Jones wheel rims. Brand new Avon tyre's, front is a 3.50 x 19 Avon Speedmaster Mk2 and the rear is a 3.50 x 19 Avon Safety Mileage Mk 2. Both wheels have had new rim tape and inner tubes too. Also my engineer pal Daz has made me some nice new rear sprocket studs with stainless steel nuts.
I sent the Ariel Huntmaster brake shoes away for re-lining about two weeks ago and I have just got them back this weekend so I thought I would show you what they are like.
The job overall seems ok and the lining that has been used is the woven non asbestos type which does not need to get hot to work apparently. I used a company in the west midlands called Villiers Services to do the work, I will let you know how they hold up when I test ride the bike on completion of the rebuild.