Star Hubs

[pan61man]

My Star Hubs on my 1961 FL are about worn out. What do people here think is the best way to repair them or can they be repaired.
A NOS set just sold on ebay for $350.00 This tells me that original ones are pretty valuable. There was a letter in The Antique Motorcycle about building up a brake drum by spray welding and then turning the drum down on a lathe recently. I was wondering if anyone thought this might work on a star hub.
I know i can buy repros but you also need a different axle.and this bike is all original. As you can see by my verbosity I have given this a lot of thought. Does anyone have a good solution?
Thanks for the help,
Doug Leone #6124 dleone1@aol.com

[Tommo]

Star Hub Repair

Hi there
These hubs are very hard to come by over here and when you do find them they nearly always need repair.
I restored my last set of hubs by finding con rod bushings of the needed internal diameter and then boring out the hub to suit the sleeves external diameter. Grind the sleeve to the required width and press the sleeves in.
One side, I can't remember which, doesn't allow you to have a very thick sleeve and I had to have the external diameter of the sleeve ground to suit the hub bore.
I'm lucky to be in a situation where machining and/or grinding costs me very little so I was able to restore my hubs for under $100 U.S. for the pair.
If someone has a better fix they may reply to this post and then we'll all learn something worthwhile.
That's my pennys worth anyway.
Yours in Vintage Motorcycling.

Tommo

[pan61man]

star hubs

Tommo,
Thanks for the reply, funny thing this morning I was looking thru JIMS parts catalog specifically the bearings section and I had a thought about some kind of sleeve. When I went to work I checked my email and there was your reply. With the answer, coincidence..... I think not!!
One other question, with so many oversize bearings available how can I figure out the size to order without having to order 2 sizes once I get the sleeve in there?
After reading the story in the club magazine a few issues about the New Zealander who raced each year on the salt flats and made his connecting rods from old catapillar parts I have a lot of respect for the ingenuity of you fellows.
Doug

[Tommo]

Star Hub Repair

Hi there Doug.
It's a bit difficult to give detailed instructions as so much depends on the condition of a lot of the other parts and not just the hub shell.
In my case I used the old inner bearing sleeve and ground the roller surfaces just enough to clean them up.
I then measured the resulting bearing surfaces diameter and added to this 1/2 inch for the two roller diameters and 1 thou for clearance and this gave me the needed internal diameter of the sleeves I was putting into the hub shell.
You will need to allow for honing to size once the sleeves are installed and I fitted them with a 1 to 1.5 thou nip.
The small diameter one at the star cover end is easy and can be finished honed in place but the one at the brake end is a different animal altogether as the shoulder of the hub prevents you from finish honing in place.
To get around this problem I made up a holder with exactly the same internal diameter as the hub shell and pressed the sleeve into this and honed it to size. The holder was made out of a piece of hollow bar and left long enough so as the opposite end to the one the sleeve was pressed into could act as a pilot while honing.
It is desireable to fit a pilot into the brake side of the hub shell while honing the star cover side sleeve.
As to exactly what sleeves I used I can't say because as I'm a bit of a Weka, (whoops I'd better explain that a Weka is one of our native birds that collects anything shiney and/or interesting and stores it away in case it"s ever needed,) I have a box of new and used bearing sleeves that I have collected over the years and in there I found just what was required but as to what they were originally intended to fit I have no idea. The large diameter one looks like it might be a Harley Big Twin one from the centre rod.
Just remember when Calculating your sleeve sizes do it as if it is a new hub using std. rollers even if you have ground the inner hub sleeve down.
I hope all this makes some sense as I think the actual job was a lot easier to do than trying to explain via the internet how I did it.
Lets know if you need any more details.
Regards, Tommo.

[Tommo]

Try again

Lets see if it submits this time
Tommo

[pan61man]

Tommo,
You are right it sounds very confusing but I think I can picture in my head what you mean. I have a bare hub and there is a machine shop in my neighborhood. I am going to bring the hub to the machinist along with a copy of your post and I will let you know what he thinks .
Thanks for your time and help. People like you are one of the reasons I love old motorcycles.
Doug

[Tommo]

Star Hub Repair

Doug
I read my post again and felt I needed to expand a bit more about the holder.
Because an internal lip prevents honing of the bearing surface on the brake side of the hub shell you need to be able to finish hone the new sleeve before you press it into the hub shell.
The easiest way to do this is to make a holder that exactly replicates the size you have bored the hub shell out to and then press into it the bearing sleeve which can now be finished to size. So long as everything is exactly the same sizes the sleeve can be removed from the holder when finished and pressed into the hub.
Remember the holder must be hollow with a bore size of sufficient diameter to enable a punch to be inserted to catch enough of the sleeves edge to press it out.
The holder is simulating the 1 to 1.5 thou nip that it will have when pressed into the hub and consequently so long as your machinist gets his sums right you shouldn't have any problems.
Press is the operative word here and any use of a hammer and punch is a real no no.
One little tip is to carefully chamfer the entry side of the sleeve so it doesn't shave metal off when being pressed in and upset your predetermined interferance fit of 1 to 1.5 thou.
I'm trying to explain how my hubs were very successfully repaired and I don't seem to be making a very good job of it but hope this post clears the muddy waters a bit.

Regards, Tommo