Houk No 5 Quick change hub nuts WANTED

[beardbros]

I have found the wheel hub nuts I was in need of 12/28/21. Thanks Jim.

 

 

Hello, I have a 1917 Roamer with No 5 Size Houk wheels and am in need of two lock nuts No 5 size, one for each side, right and left handed threads. The original Roamer lock nuts were given to the war effort. The previous owner had secured 2 of these and then in the 1950's had to have the others machined out of steel without the locking mechanism. Any help would be much appreciated!

Edited December 30, 2021 by beardbros (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

Wow !, That's a car !!  Unfortunately no center nuts, need some myself.  Best of luck with your search.

[1937hd45]

Nice car! Does it have the Rochester/Duesenberg engine? Bob 

[alsancle]

Very Cool!

[TAKerry]

That is a great looking car. Can you elaborate a bit for us plebeians?  

Is that a single locking nut that contains the wheel to the axle? Kinda like a Rudge knockoff?

Also, those wire wheels look spindly for a big car like that, compared to some others of the period.

[1912Staver]

Very similar concept to the Rudge set up except on this style drive torque is transmitted by the pins you see poking through the hub shell rather than splines on the hub and inside the wheel hub shell. 

This is quite early for wire wheels on an American car so wheel diameter is still quite large and that makes the wheel look "spindly ". Those look like at least 25 " wheels and possibly larger. I think No. 5 was the largest hub this style was made in. Although possibly a No. 6 was available and I just haven't seen any.

[Laughing Coyote]

What type of material are they made out of?  Any pictures of the cap by itself, front and back?  Just curious.

[KLF]

My 14 Premier was supplied with 25 inch #5 Houk wire wheels from the factory. They were an $80 option!! Mine do not have a locking mechanism on them. There isn't any sign of one ever being there. It doesn't appear to need it, I recently completed a 1100 mile tour and the wheels never loosened at all. As long as the left hand threaded cap is on the right side and the right hand threaded cap is on the left they shouldn't want to come loose. I believe my caps are made from German silver. I don't have any extras.

Ken

 

[beardbros]

17 hours ago, 1937hd45 said:

Nice car! Does it have the Rochester/Duesenberg engine? Bob 

It has a Rutenbur 6

[1912Staver]

Hi Ken, your Premier must have the very first version of the wheels. I think they were introduced in 1913 or 1914.  Interesting to see the lack of the lock mechanism. They are the only ones I have seen without it. I expect the feature was added shortly after your wheels were made.

[beardbros]

On 9/13/2021 at 4:13 PM, TAKerry said:

That is a great looking car. Can you elaborate a bit for us plebeians?  

Is that a single locking nut that contains the wheel to the axle? Kinda like a Rudge knockoff?

Also, those wire wheels look spindly for a big car like that, compared to some others of the period.

 

Yes, it is a single locking brass nut. These wheels have a 26" diameter rim.

[beardbros]

On 9/13/2021 at 6:22 PM, 1912Staver said:

Very similar concept to the Rudge set up except on this style drive torque is transmitted by the pins you see poking through the hub shell rather than splines on the hub and inside the wheel hub shell. 

This is quite early for wire wheels on an American car so wheel diameter is still quite large and that makes the wheel look "spindly ". Those look like at least 25 " wheels and possibly larger. I think No. 5 was the largest hub this style was made in. Although possibly a No. 6 was available and I just haven't seen any.

 

I measured the rim and found they are 26" diameter

[beardbros]

On 9/13/2021 at 6:47 PM, Laughing Coyote said:

What type of material are they made out of?  Any pictures of the cap by itself, front and back?  Just curious.

 

They are made of brass.

[Ivan Saxton]

The only set of #6 houk wheels In have seen was on Morris Burrows 1914 Mercer 35O Runabout.  I was guest of Morris and Libby Burrows on the 1980 Glidden tour which was based at the Mt Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods , New Hampshire.   I was amazed that it was comfortable for the three of us in the front seat.   Morris had a nice set of Rudge wheels which he intended to fit to it.  ( Carl Darby is now the owner of this car, and knowing that his grandmother was a daughter of either Charles or Ferdie Roebling,  and I was pleased to know that the car became the property of the family who built it.)       I have The 1923 Roamer Duesenberg that was bought out of a catalogue, intended to break  Melbourne to Adelaide road record.  They blew the 5th of the 8 special 6.00x23 tyres, about 150 miles short of completing the attempt.    The photograph copy of the 1921 car which established some AAA Stock car records at Daytona Beach in April 1921 recorded a flying mile covered in an elapsed time which constituted an average of 105.15 miles per hour.   I have enough except radiator to rebuild a 1921 Roamer which has  a 300 cubic inch Continental 9N engine.  I also have a 1917 Roamer chassis frame and a few other parts of a car which expired on a trip from Victoria, headed to South Australia.   I can think of no sane reason why anyone would bother to save a Rutenber Six engine.   I always derisively referred to these as "Rottenbers", because they had die-cast thick white-metal Babbitt bearings.   Other, more distinguished engineers built engines around 1920 with the same fault.  For some reason Lancia built Kappa model engines with the same fault, and Geoff Fullard and his brother Royce had to make crankshaft bronze shell bearings, with a thin machined lining of bearing metal.  ( For his straight eight racing Bugatti, Geoff had to make his own new crankshaft in many parts, but with needle roller bearings so the needle rollers meant that  the engine did not sound like a "bucket of bolts".       (I shall need to relate the rest of this over the weekend.  It would be very useful to have a "save"  function on this program .)                                                                Getting back to early Roamers, the early chassis frame with a 1917 number, which is conserved , hanging upside down in the storage area of my workshop shed, has engine mounts that match the Rutenber 6 engines which Peter Pinkerton has for his Australian Six restoration projects.     Now Mr Gordon, who aspired to establish manufacture of automobiles in Sydney, NSW, chose to start this by purchase and assembly of bulk purchases of American components.  He purchased at least one lot of 500 Rutenber engine, which Roamer had stopped using a couple of years earlier, and switched to the larger and more powerful Continental 9N.   Peter was a proud man when he trailered home the earliest known survivor, ( serial # 30) .   That one was no longer an Australian Six, but had become an Australian Five.  There had been a fault in the engine block coring, which had leaked water into the engine oil.  The fault was between the valves of one of the rear cylinders.  So they had removed the piston and connecting rod drilled a hole from the valve chamber  into the cylinder,  and sealed it with a half inch Whitworth nut and bolt, with a lead washer on either side.   After blocking the hole permanently with a threaded stud, then fitted a sleeve in the bore.  Noone could tell how long or far the car ran on five cylinders,   but I suppose that T model Fords only had four.       I found it a painstaking job to make new bearing sets from bronze stock; with correct space for poured babbit, to be machined for excellent service life.   I considered material and workmanship of the crankshafts to be admirable.   These Rutenber sixes that they were lucky to unload on someone inexperienced from the antipodes  could well have been superceeded by  a re-designed engine block with better intake passages and valve ports.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Getting back  to the need for wheel nuts:   Several decades ago, two different but basically identical early Roamer front axles appeared at Bendigo National Swap Meet.  I had a fair idea of the district one my have come from.  But who ever knows?  A farm-based trailer axle is likely to travel great distances from the vehicle it may have come from. These ones are not from Stanpar  axles of the 1920s, but possibly Timken.  I need to find my set of thread pitch gauges and clean the threads on the hubs so i can pick the right thread pitch and a left and right  pair so you can do some motoring.    My son is out at the moment.  I know we had some original name discs, for that is how they could be recognised. often they may have damage,  but my son has special interest in making identical replicas by the original method.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[beardbros]

On 9/18/2021 at 12:07 AM, Ivan Saxton said:

The only set of #6 houk wheels In have seen was on Morris Burrows 1914 Mercer 35O Runabout.  I was guest of Morris and Libby Burrows on the 1980 Glidden tour which was based at the Mt Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods , New Hampshire.   I was amazed that it was comfortable for the three of us in the front seat.   Morris had a nice set of Rudge wheels which he intended to fit to it.  ( Carl Darby is now the owner of this car, and knowing that his grandmother was a daughter of either Charles or Ferdie Roebling,  and I was pleased to know that the car became the property of the family who built it.)       I have The 1923 Roamer Duesenberg that was bought out of a catalogue, intended to break  Melbourne to Adelaide road record.  They blew the 5th of the 8 special 6.00x23 tyres, about 150 miles short of completing the attempt.    The photograph copy of the 1921 car which established some AAA Stock car records at Daytona Beach in April 1921 recorded a flying mile covered in an elapsed time which constituted an average of 105.15 miles per hour.   I have enough except radiator to rebuild a 1921 Roamer which has  a 300 cubic inch Continental 9N engine.  I also have a 1917 Roamer chassis frame and a few other parts of a car which expired on a trip from Victoria, headed to South Australia.   I can think of no sane reason why anyone would bother to save a Rutenber Six engine.   I always derisively referred to these as "Rottenbers", because they had die-cast thick white-metal Babbitt bearings.   Other, more distinguished engineers built engines around 1920 with the same fault.  For some reason Lancia built Kappa model engines with the same fault, and Geoff Fullard and his brother Royce had to make crankshaft bronze shell bearings, with a thin machined lining of bearing metal.  ( For his straight eight racing Bugatti, Geoff had to make his own new crankshaft in many parts, but with needle roller bearings so the needle rollers meant that  the engine did not sound like a "bucket of bolts".       (I shall need to relate the rest of this over the weekend.  It would be very useful to have a "save"  function on this program .)                                                                Getting back to early Roamers, the early chassis frame with a 1917 number, which is conserved , hanging upside down in the storage area of my workshop shed, has engine mounts that match the Rutenber 6 engines which Peter Pinkerton has for his Australian Six restoration projects.     Now Mr Gordon, who aspired to establish manufacture of automobiles in Sydney, NSW, chose to start this by purchase and assembly of bulk purchases of American components.  He purchased at least one lot of 500 Rutenber engine, which Roamer had stopped using a couple of years earlier, and switched to the larger and more powerful Continental 9N.   Peter was a proud man when he trailered home the earliest known survivor, ( serial # 30) .   That one was no longer an Australian Six, but had become an Australian Five.  There had been a fault in the engine block coring, which had leaked water into the engine oil.  The fault was between the valves of one of the rear cylinders.  So they had removed the piston and connecting rod drilled a hole from the valve chamber  into the cylinder,  and sealed it with a half inch Whitworth nut and bolt, with a lead washer on either side.   After blocking the hole permanently with a threaded stud, then fitted a sleeve in the bore.  Noone could tell how long or far the car ran on five cylinders,   but I suppose that T model Fords only had four.       I found it a painstaking job to make new bearing sets from bronze stock; with correct space for poured babbit, to be machined for excellent service life.   I considered material and workmanship of the crankshafts to be admirable.   These Rutenber sixes that they were lucky to unload on someone inexperienced from the antipodes  could well have been superceeded by  a re-designed engine block with better intake passages and valve ports.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Getting back  to the need for wheel nuts:   Several decades ago, two different but basically identical early Roamer front axles appeared at Bendigo National Swap Meet.  I had a fair idea of the district one my have come from.  But who ever knows?  A farm-based trailer axle is likely to travel great distances from the vehicle it may have come from. These ones are not from Stanpar  axles of the 1920s, but possibly Timken.  I need to find my set of thread pitch gauges and clean the threads on the hubs so i can pick the right thread pitch and a left and right  pair so you can do some motoring.    My son is out at the moment.  I know we had some original name discs, for that is how they could be recognised. often they may have damage,  but my son has special interest in making identical replicas by the original method.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ivan,

 Thanks for the wealth of information! If you do happen to run across the correct No 5 left & right wheel nuts please contact me. As for the discs that say Roamer, I would be in need of 4 of those as the 2 on my car say HOUK.

 

Thanks you!

[1937hd45]

Could a HOUK wheel expert confirm what I've been told, that BUFFALO wire wheels are the same and interchangeable? 

 

Bob

Edited September 19, 2021 by 1937hd45 (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

Interesting that a Mercer; a relatively small car for the era, would have the largest { heaviest } hubs. Of course wheels in general were very heavy in the teens, particularly the larger diameters. I don't think engineers of the day had a good understanding of sprung vs un - sprung weight. Stutz using a transmission built in unit with the rear end is a good example of a car with performance in mind suffering from less than sound { as we know it today } engineering.

[1912Staver]

Hi Bob, a few makers produced pin drive , center lock wheels. In trying to put a set together I have gathered up a number of them with small differences. It would be great if someone could point out the identity of all the variations. Layden Butler seems to have as good an idea as anyone , but I haven't seen him on the forum for a while now. 

[1937hd45]

I sold Layden the best Buffalo front hub and cap I had, I had planed to build a set around it, you know how that goes. Twenty years later I had the same hub and cap. 

[Ivan Saxton]

On 9/20/2021 at 2:49 AM, 1912Staver said:

Hi Bob, a few makers produced pin drive , center lock wheels. In trying to put a set together I have gathered up a number of them with small differences. It would be great if someone could point out the identity of all the variations. Layden Butler seems to have as good an idea as anyone , but I haven't seen him on the forum for a while now. 

I am more or less familiar with hubs wheels with virtually identical  fitting to the pins of #5 size of three makes/design.  Houk and Hayes are most similar to each other.   The drive pins go right through an open-ended sleeve for each on the wheel centre.   Hayes have blind ends, with an integral dome on the outside.   This probably sounds as ciear as mud.  The wheels are interchangeable on the other's hubs.  The threads are left and right hand on the hubs.  The thread pitch of the big wheel nuts of Hayes wheels, such as used by Roamer on Stanpar axles was 10 threads per inch, irrespective of whether the car was fitted with Continental 9N, or Ro9chester Duesenberg G1 or G3 walking beam engines.  Hayes wheel nuts were a white alloy, possibly containing nickel.   Houk wheel nuts were a more normal yellowish bronze.  And all that I have seen  were 12 threads per inch;   including Stutz,  and the Houk wheels on very early Roamer before they changed to Hayes wheels.  Looking at 10 or twelve threads per inch,  you might think that the difference would be minimal;  but they are very different when you look at the two side by side.  ( When I was given paid work to do at the engineer's workshop at the family sawmill in the mid/late 1940s,  a less favourite task was to sort nuts and bolts from dismantled war surplus according to diameter, length, and thread pitch.   I thought it was boring,  but my Uncle Jack, who had been a Company Captain in a forrestry Battalion was insistent on accuracy. )      Stutz, on the big 4 cylinder T head cars in the early 1920s had similar wheek nuts , but with an internal hexagon slot for the wheel spanner , instead of a protruding octagon like Roamer.      A little later Buick used Ash wire wheels with a pair of ring nuts to secure the wheels onto their hubs .   The outer hexagon ring nut was for a smaller spanner size, which was virtually a lock nut.  Both larger and smaller size were on the same wheel spanner.      Smaller size than #5 Houk were used on Essex, for instance,  and Hupmobile.  Any of those that I found I gave to someone who had a car.      Probably the smallest Houk wheels were available for T model Ford after market I suppose.   Being small those would be easier to copy.        John Ryder from Northern NSW has had dealings with Layden Butler in the past.  I will ring him tomorrow to see if he knows whether Laydon is still vertical.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Ivan Saxton
did not look to count before I wrote: 8 sides, not 6 (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

Thanks Ivan. The wheels I have turned up so far have variations in the pin holes as you describe. It seems to me that the ones with the closed holes { Hayes } actually have one open hole and 5 closed holes, but my memory may be playing tricks. The open hole wheels have a slight variation as well. On some the turned up reinforcing ring around the outside of the pin hole is a continuous ridge.  Like on Ken's white Premier, above.   On other wheels the ridge has two spots where the raised ridge is cut away. The wheels in the original post Roamer  have this feature. 

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

I have known Layden Butler for almost fifty years now. One of the most knowledgeable antique automobile people I have ever talked with, and has a lot of era research materials to identify wheels and pieces. 

I am pretty sure he is still vertical. I have seen current advertisements of items for sale on the model T site within the past couple days. He doesn't like contact information posted that can be easily read by robots, the probably best way to give you his contact information is to give you a link to one of the model T parts he has for sale. He includes a photograph of his contact information hand written.

 

https://mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23722

[ron hausmann]

I have several Houk/Buffalo #5 hub caps for sale. Unrestored WITH locking mechanisms. I will PM you.

Also just sold two Houk/Buffalo #6 wheels. These had Cadillac medallions on them. 21” wheels I believe. 
 

Ron Hausmann P.E.

[beardbros]

Thanks for all the help on this guys. I have secured the two nuts I needed. Happy new year!