Help restoring Henry Abe wheels

Yeah Honda sucks balls for putting those useless retainers in. I defy anyone to explain their purpose.

Good thing is you can buy new retainers (at least for the stock front hub) from Honda.
 
Tim said:
Destroys a 40 year old bearing that needs to be replaced anyhow with a new $10 sealed unit. Do this before you bother painting the wheels, or after if you're powder coating them (although I think bearings survive powder coating ovens).

You should always remove bearing or any form of oil or grease before powder coating. If you dont the fumes from the burning oil or grease will dull the finish on the coating especially on a gloss finish.
 
Well. Got the bearing retainer out....the hard way.
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We'll have to clean up a few threads to fit the new retainer.
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Started with a hand file/pick. May have to finish up with a Dremel wheel on low speed.
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Now, the BEST news: A local friend of ours who runs a powdercoating business has agreed to help us out. He said he'd blast them for us, give us the tape so we can prep them, and he'll run them in with a batch of his product. For FREE!
Stay tuned.
 
Looks like my Dad did a fine job on saving the threads. Here's the new retainer. Went right in. We also made a "tool" for when we get ready to do the actual installation.
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I cleaned up some tire iron marks around the rim on the rear wheel....somebody got all Ape Man on it. We also cleaned up the friction surface for the brake. There were a few spots of corrosion, so we're going to try filling them with JB Weld and then sanding back flat. They probably would have been OK, but what the heck.
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Elaborate, please. That stuff gets HARD. I've seen it machined, drilled, tapped, etc. I was only going to use it to fill in the pits.
Worse case scenario: I'll have the drum turned to remove it.
 
Ya those bearing retainers really bite.
I looked in one of the old Honda factory manuals I have and they tell you to drill out the factory "staking" or upset - ie, the factory peening of the retainer. Not having the recommended metric drill bit, I used a 3/16 drill and the retainer threaded out easily afterwards.
When I put the new wheel bearings in, I "restaked" the retainer. The bike I was rebuilding had over 27,000 miles on it with the factory bearings and I doubt whether the bike will ever see that many again, so I'm pretty safe on another rebuild...
Of course, I read the manual after I abused the rear hub from one of my 350's, ending up with a multipiece retainer similar to the one in the photos - thankfully, had a few spares around.
Once I grokked to the staking thing, I started looking around at other ancient stuff I have and some of my older bike manuals and it seems like it was a pretty common method awhile back. Honda for some reason kept doing it with their bikes well after everyone else figured out alternate and modern methods to stop bits from loosening.
Its all good fun.
Pat
 
Consider re-lining the drum. This is the place to go for old brakes - www.vintagebrake.com
 
I don't even know what that is. I'm asking why/when/what/how. Care to elaborate?

Like I said: I thought JB Weld made a HARD surface.
 
You're going to end up with JB Weld smeared all over your brake lining and shoes. It's not going to abrade away and turn into dust, it's more likely to just smear all over the place, heat up, melt etc.
 
Duly noted. The pock marks aren't that bad. I've run worse before with no issues.
 
Honestly don't know what benefit would be gained from filling in pock marks in brake lining with foreign materials. If they're bad enough, they need to be relined. Nothing else is going to improve braking or prevent uneven / odd wear on your brake shoes.
 
Picked up the wheels from the powder coater today. They did a great job of blasting them. I'm not sure what media they used, but they're very clean and not too rough.

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The guy that did the blasting said that when they finish the raw surface with clear, it looks amazing. He said a lot of hot-rodders have manifolds, etc., done that way and it looks really cool. I took his word for it and decided to let him blast the whole wheel, tape up the rims and edges of the spokes, powder coat the wheel black and then have the whole thing cleared.

They gave me this weird heat tape to work with:
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At first, I tried doing it in small pieces, but the tape isn't very flexible when making a curve.
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So I taped up large areas and used a razor blade to trim it. Aah...much better!
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It took about half an hour to do one side of the front wheel.
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I took a few breaks, but this is what about two hours of taping and trimming gets you.
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I'll get them back to the powder coater next week and, hopefully, he can work them in soon.
 
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