Continuing with the Walker project. I'm going into greater detail than would normally be necessary, but this can serve as a guide in the future to others who may want to take on a similar project with their own jack. I hope this isn't too dry and boring.
With the front wheels removed I turned to the rears. They are held in place by a screw as seen. It really helps to have had penetrating oil working on them. These screws are staked in place as a means to keep them from loosing up and backing out. Look at the 4:00 and 7:00 positions on either side of the screw slot and you can see a dimple in the screw head. This displaces metal on the screw head slightly which helps hold the screw in. Very important to use a correct fitting screw driver or hand impact to loosen the screw or the slot will get chewed up and make removal quite difficult.
The screw removed. Note the bottom left side and how it tapers. They aren't perfectly round on the bottom.
The rear wheel or caster removed. Before you loosen the screw all the way, position something under the caster to catch all the ball bearings that are about to fall out. An old bath towel works well. It will keep the little balls from rolling all over the place and losing some of them!
This is what is about to cascade from the rear caster as it's removed. I believe there are 21 balls, my notes are in the shop. The washer like item (there are two of them) are retainers that sit above and below the balls.
Once the casters were removed I found an excessive amount of play in the wheel axles. To correct that, the old axles needed to be removed and inspected.
That inspection showed why there was so much play in the rear wheels. Note the wear on the axle shafts. Riding on these steel shafts were bronze bushings (portions of what is left of the bushings seen on left), press fit into the wheels themselves. Bronze is generally soften than steel and yet they still wore the harder steel shafts. Hard to believe but true.
Here's a look at what is left of the bushings. They were worn onion skin thin. New axles and bushings were fabricated and installed.
Here are the rears rebuilt.
To install the rear axles, they were staked to prevent them from coming out of the casting and to keep them from turning.
The "treads" if you will of the wheels, were polished up as best I could. The pitting is from the jack sitting in water or mud. There wasn't enough material on the wheel to turn them down to good metal all the way across.
Here are the rears all done, new axles and bushings installed and powder coated.
And these are the fronts powder coated.
The "treads" of the fronts still need to be polished.
And these are the front wheels all done along with their hub caps.
Of course there is more coming, please check back.
Thomas
