Well, to those of you who've been following along on this channel you know
that I do custom repairs, restorations, new, I'll do new builds on wagons and my
parameter is that you have to be able to hook a draft animal to it; draft
horse, saddle horse, mule, dogs, goats, I even did one that was being pulled by
turkeys, but generally it has to be a traditional style vehicle before I'm
really interested in getting too deep into it. Well I have a wagon that we're
going to go through today and on the surface it looks like a traditional
wagon, but once we begin to look a little closer we'll see that it's not quite so.
The main problem is with the wheels and these nuts were loosening up. So as I got
to lookin' a little closer to this wagon, I begin to see telltale signs
of what this wagon was about. Not quite traditional. There's quite a little bit
of homemade fabrication and if you've watched my videos you'll begin to see
some of these little oddities stand out. This would be called, I would say it's an
original, but it's not traditional and there's a big difference between the two.
I would consider this wagon original to the man who built it, but not so much in
a traditional method, so I'm gonna grab a creeper and crawl under this thing
and we're gonna see that there's really quite a few things that aren't quite
traditional. It has a fifth-wheel support similar to
a buggy. The back axle has been replaced and the skeins don't really quite fit. So
they welded a strap across from skein to skein, from right to left. It kind of
makes me wonder who put this wagon togethe.
You can see it's not forged like the old traditional ones would be, so I'm gonna
take some wagon jacks and jack this up and see what's happening inside these
wheels. Part of the problem from the customer is saying that the right rear
wheel was the worst having been nut loosen up when his horses were jigging
and dancing. They hadn't really quite learned how to stand still yet, so I'm going to
open these up and kinda see what we got going on.
Well, even though a square axle nut is the most common there are a few of these
hex nuts around, but when I open them up and I start to see these little metal
shims that have been added my suspicion radar goes up.
When I find big ole washers like this I know somethings not right, so I'm going to
check the fit it doesn't take much to find out these wheels don't fit the skein.
The outside of the boxing isn't bad, but the overall boxing is
about 3/8 of an inch too short and the taper on the inside is not even close.
It's about 3/16 of an inch too big on the boxing to the skein.
So, I've got enough grease on here we can't even see what's going on I'm going to clean things up.
So, after a run through the sandblaster we can see seamless arm a
number three and an L for left. Inside is pretty traditional, but there sure is a
big wear groove. The three should stand for a three-inch axle,
and this is what is on the large side of the skein. There's the three, so the nut does fit
the skein. Well I got about three and a quarter inch and I'm going to get rid of
these steel washers and put in a leather washer. The problem with steel washers
that they'll grab and seize where the leather washer won't.
Well, I've got a pretty heavy side of leather here and I've got some homemade punches and I'm going to
punch out some washers that's going to fit these wheels and axles
Well, I thought I had this center hole kind of figured out, but a quick little
check I'm a little tight and I really don't have the right size so I'm gonna
make me a new little punch that should fit these axles better.
Well, there's not really much I can do about the misfit on the taper, but a
with a little leather shim, we can take the play out of this hub in and out where runs up
against the nut and that'll help it a little bit. Well, this nut is the same
hexagon, but it doesn't have the seamless arm on there like the other one does and
this has a little different configuration of washers.
Well, this washer isn't really quite thick enough like I'd like. In my configuration of
washers I got one that's a little heavier this one's gonna fit a little
better.
It looks like what they've been using is just an ordinary general-purpose grease,
which I've got some about like it, so I'll grease it up and take her back together.
Well this right rear wheel is the wheel that was giving him in the most fits,
so we'll see what we got going got the same little round washer.
Oh my, we got lots of washers in here.
When I clean the grease off of this one my first thought was, huh. Wow!
Somebody needs to learn how to weld. Well now what do we do.
We're gonna clean it up. Yep, still a seamless three. This one has an R on it for the right side
instead of a left.
Ya, and boy, we got a lot of shims in this one.
With all these welds it's keeping the nut from going on, but just about maybe
three threads and it bottoms out on this weld. Yeah, that's why we got to add so
many shims, we can't even get the nut on. See how far out it's sticking?
Well, the inside of these nuts have kind of a concave little section to them I think if I
knock some of this weld down it'll fit into this little concave section of this
nut that's going to gain us a couple threads and I think maybe if I take a
triangle file I might clean it up to get it in about
to where it almost have full set of threads. I thought about cutting these
apart but then we got these straps on there and they go front and back both,
and they're welded to the skeins and they go from one side to the next and,
you know, this really isn't a high-dollar wagon so now that comes to be the puzzle
how much time and effort do I put in here to fix this or do I just make it
where the nut will stay on? Well, the latter decision was where I decided to go.
I'm gonna try to clean some of this weld up see if I can get close to a full nuts worth of
thread on these nuts.
Well, without really an in-depth surgical operation there's just really no way to
make this ideal. I gotter down to where I'm about one thread or thread and a half
short of getting the whole nut on still takes two washers to take all the play
in and out, but with the leather washers as opposed to all those steel washers it
won't have a tendency to loosen that nut up quite so bad when we back it up.
Well, the right-front has kind of the same problem, but it's not near as severe.
So this one's not quite so difficult to get a full nuts worth of thread on it.
But, my oh my, did they have lots of washers on this one. Still the seamless three, R.
But look at this stack of washers. Wow!
So these are all the washers I took out. This is the left rear, this one was the
left front, and this one here was the right rear. All these washers, and the
other one here is the right front.
So overall, these are not ideal fixes, but they'll make the wagon run. The biggest
part was getting rid of the steel washers so they don't lock up or seize
up against the nuts quite so much. Putting these leather washers in will
make a big difference.
So, in doing repairs like this, there's a number of factors
that all add in. One is the goal and desire of the customer,
one is the overall integrity of the wagon, and therefore the value of the wagon, and
just how much time effort and expense is worth investing into the wagon to make it
runnable. If it weren't safe I wouldn't do it, but sometimes it's less than ideal
but that's just the reality of life. Well, now we have a tongue that we need to
change out. It's about six inches shorter than he would like. It's kind of a
homemade fabrication too, but it is what it is. We'll swap it over and make it
work. Well, over the years I've been asked over and over and time and time again
where did you learn to do what you do? Did your dad do it? Well, my common answer
is, no my dad didn't do it. I just kind of picked it up by doing it, and I've said
time and time again, my teachers have been the waggons themselves. Kind of like
looking for counterfeit money. When you look at the original long enough you see
what's counterfeit. Qnd I think you've been viewing long enough you can kind of
see what's counterfeit. So, I'll finish this next week. Thanks for watching!