VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 detachable rim

I am in the act of putting on new tires, flaps, tubes on my 1928 truck. I have the rims off, the wooden spoke hub came off easly and for the life of me I can't figure out how to split the rim. There is an obvious split in the rim but both sides of the rim are rivited to the mechanism ( for the lack of terms for the part rivited on the rim that lock the rim parts together)

I have read many articles about how to do this procedure with a rim spreader, but there seems to be no way that this will work without removing one rivet and then the rim halves will be free to separate.

Can anyone give me some advice about how to get over this hurdle.

Paul

Do you have the split rim and tire off the wheel? It would be nice if you could post a picture of the split part of the rim. If you don't know how to post a pic here email me a picture as an attachment to an email to mrmackc@msn.com

and I will post it here and we will work this out. OK?

There are generally two types of locks on Chevy rims from that period. One uses a cotter pin to keep the rim together. The pin fits into a hole in the part that slips into a slot in the other side. The other has a lock that has a vertical part that is used to rotate the lock around a center rivet. As MrMack posted a picture can easily tell us what type you have.

Here is a pic. I believe that you have to rotate the tab that overlaps the latch on the other side of the split, After the tire bead is broken and the rim spreader is on the rim in the rim Collapsing mode, like Chipper said:

MrMack

I think that you are correct. The rivet closest to the split must not be a complete rivet and must act as a locator to keep the rims in place. I assumed that this was another rivet.
I will attempt to rotate the tab and see what it does.

Thanks for your help

Paul

MrMack

Sometimes things are so simple that they are hard.

I have been placing penetrating oil on the mechanisim and just a few minutes ago I took your advice and with a few hits I now have a rim that is ready to go. The two halves sprung apart!

I have about 12 years of college under my belt and a farm background toboot and I was overthinking this baby. Many thanks

Paul

I know Paul, it happens all the time. Sometimes you have to sit down and remember that the guys that designed and built these old cars were normal engineers and mechanics, they did things to get them to work, not to confuse or to play a trick on the owner-operators. They weren't computer jockeys haveing a good time building in a extra amount of microspic electronic bits of junk just to confuse the consumers...give me a break and some air...But Windows?... Boot up?.... Restore the computer? which wipes all your good stuff off forever?.....Windows, used to be something to roll down and look outside thru? push start to kill the engine? shame on them dudes anyway.......... I like the old cars and the yellowed pages of the original Repair Manual and Parts books better.