I am installing an original adjustable-hub 100-S steering wheel (with S
provenance) to the 100-M, and am doing it as conservatively as I can. To that
end, I have fitted an adjustable steering box, and 'retired' the BN2 fixed
wheel, column and tie rods, all original, to the attic. I went with a BJ8
raised top box with high ratio on advice of several cognoscenti because the
older Bn1 adjustable boxes are nearly to impossible to rebuild, and cannot be
fitted with new worm gears.
I've fitted the gear in without problem, and the only issue that confronts me
now is dealing with the Bn2 dash, which has a slot that is 1/4" narrower than
the wheel's Burgess locking nut (identical to the stock Bn1 adjustable wheel's
nut made on the earliest 100's). My present intention is to leave the dash
alone, and to turn down the bakelite on the nut. This will allow clearance
between the slots, and leave me with a well-positioned wheel located as close
to the dash as the long hub will allow. The lobes of the securing nut will be
in back of the dash.
I would rather not trash the original S wheel's nut, so if anyone out there
has a beaten up Bn1 wheel locking nut, I would be glad to buy it as a turning
blank. (These locking pieces are cylindrical, roughly 1-3/8" x 2", rather than
the later conical shaped nut).
If anyone has one of these nuts (any condition), please contact me off list.
Thanks,
Allen Miller.
NB. For those who may be interested in the esoteric, I discovered that the
factory-fabricated S wheel is made from a stock BN1 adjustable hub, with the
casting 'ears' machined off and the the aluminum wheel sandwiched between a
huge washer on the front and a flat area turned on the back of the hub. The
whole affair is meticulously joined with rivets vs. the 9 screws found on
after-market hubs from the 60's. The entire spline locking mechanism is stock
from the BN1 set-up. In profile, the hub is nearly identical to the BN1 stock
wheel, but polished aluminum. If anyone would like pictures of the S wheel
side by side with an original Bn1, I cna email them.
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