When it comes to engineering decisions, I am mostly a very sensible person. Some would even go as far as to consider to call me a stereotypical engineer. But even I have feelings.
Two-tone 2CV wheels? Yes, Smart car wheels would have only cost marginally more are hub-centered and don't need special paperwork to be run with a 135/70R15 tyre. So we're making an adapter for a bolt-centered wheel. As you'll find out this is only the prototype to see, if it's the right size etc. Thus it will be made from steel.
Base plate is 200x200mmx40mm, the tube is some thick-wall seamless 100x60mm that I chose so it would fit over a pair of 6204-2RS ball bearings.
Marked out a 160mm bolt hole circle and inscribed the 3 mounting holes with a caliper.
Bored the tube for the bearings to go in with a nice satisfying press-fit.
Quick test fit on the axle - will need a little spacer, but other than that...
Drilling a 60mm hole (with a press-fit) turned out to be quite the task and kept me busy for at least two or three hours, especially as my biggest drill bit is 20mm and I had some serious deflection issus, i.e. the hole became an odd shaped taper, because I got a bit greedy with the boring bar.
Then it was back to the lathe to make sure I could turn it into something round.
Parts of an old Lada Niva brake piston found its way onto the axle to act as a spacer.
Call me a chicken, but in the end I laid down a few weld beads, just to be sure.
When classic engineering and trigonometry works:
As you can tell by the following two pictures:
This looks pretty cool and the order of events as presented in this build is completely broken, which is mainly due to the fact that I often worked on multiple things at the same time, because I had to wait on parts, etc. After a few short testrides it became apparent that the basic design is sound and that a second version made from aluminium is definitely the way forward.
As I bought an offcut, I ended up with a slightly beefier wheel flange than initially planned.
The rest of the work was pretty much the same, except everything goes a lot quicker in aluminium.
Quick test-fit on the wheel:
Press the center tube with the bearings in and install it. (Once more with a cheeky little weld on the back-side just for good measure.)
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