Todays Project - What did you do today?

[marfaguy]

A friend of mine that races motorcycles bought a wheel balancer from harbor freight.
http://www.harborfreight.com/motorcycle-...98488.html
is the one he got.
The problem is that the internal bore on the cones is more than just a slip fit on the
solid bar axle. When you tighten down the set screw it cants the taper a bit so the
wheel isn't very well centered so the wheel tends to wobble, a fair amount of wobble actually.
The other problem is that you really have to tighten down the set screw since the tendency
is for the wheel to 'push out' the cones unless they are really tight. All in all not a very good
piece of equipment but if he was careful he could make it work, kinda.

So here's what we came up with. I had a piece of Drill rod that measured .5002" so we
reamed two 2" long pieces of 1.25" Dia. aluminum to .501" right down the center. I then mounted
between centers on my little 7x16" lathe and trued them up. My friend had spare bearings for both
the front wheel and the back wheel on his racing bike that I used for fitting. I turned most of the length
down to a slip fit of the bigger (rear wheel) bearing.Then put a bit of a chamfer matching the original cone angle.
After that I turned the smaller bearing (front wheel) to a nice slip fit and put a bit of the same cone
angle between the two different diameters. Drill and tap for set screws, a bit of a polish and it was done.

The picture shows caps screws because that's all I had in the shop at the time. My friend tells me that they work
great and that since the wheels are now riding on the holders instead of being pinched between cones he doesn't
even need set screws. He did get a set of nylons ones though just so the holders won't slide off of the axle when not in use.