Locking hub restore, part 1
Inspired by
MoC's repaint of his locking hubs, I decided to do mine.
I know nothing about the make of my locking hubs. They don't have brand name stamped into them, but there is a number on the inside of one of the housings. They're probably original AMC parts. Perhaps someone can fill in the blank.
when I did my disc brakes, it was clear the locking hubs were in bad shape, at least cosmetically, and I've been wanting to clean them up and get them looking good.
Here's a shot of one of the hubs inside the open chome hub 'cap' that I got when I got new wheels:
Here's a better photo of the thing with the wheel and hubcap off:
You can see the weathered and pitted aluminum housing:
The center twist mechanism is all plastic, with a metal screw in the center:
Here's the inside. The insides were clean with some grease. I didn't see any grime, dirt, mud, etc.
I pulled both hubs. One had about 90% of its paint intact, and the other one had only about 10% intact. The one with most of its paint missing was noticeable more weathered on the aluminum surface. This is the one with most of its paint:
When you remove the center screw on these, the whole mechanism will pop apart due to the large spring inside. Be careful. Here are the parts after disassembly:
Inside:
This is the face of the housing with the plastic twist knob removed. It's gritty:
Plastic knob:
Somehere, either in the FSM or Chilton's, I read not to disassemble the locking hubs unless you knew what you were doing (my words, not theirs). The whole locking hub idea is pretty simple: You twist the front and this turns a threaded mechanism that pushes or pulls a piece forward or backward. The key concept seems to be that you need to makes sure you're getting enough push or pull. So, after the first one flew apart on me after I removed the front screw, I measured the in/out distances on the second one so I could make sure it was the same after re-assembly:
Here's the other hub with most of the paint missing:
Now, on to the real run. Here's our paint stripper. I have used this before and it is nasty stuff. It will tear you up. Here's the old metal paint can I use for stuff like this:
Lots of safety gear needed here. Ideally I would have had a face shield...
I painted the stripper on which was tough because it has the consistency of thick, thick mucus. Here, the hub housings are sitting caradboard with the stripper applied...
I picked up the following rattlecans:
- Aluminum primer (flat white in color)
- 'hammered metal' which is a very dark chocolate/dark gray color. I'm not sure exactly what color it's supposed to be.
- red, designed for use on plastic
- white, which I didn't end up needing and I will return
Here are the hubs after stripping and cleaning. The hub with white on the surface is the one that didn't have much paint. You're seeing lots of oxidation on the surface, which shows that the paint really would protect the metal.
Continued in part 2...