Here are my hub puller experiences in case it may help out anyone
contemplating this job.
My car is "under restoration" so the rear end was not attached to the car.
First I borrowed a friends home built slide hammer style puller. It bolted
to the wheel lugs and had a 10lb barbell weight that slid along a 1/2 inch
iron pipe. A big thick flat washer was welded to one end of the pipe and
the other end of the pipe screwed into the piece that bolted to the hub.
This puller was built for removing the hubs on his "Tiger" and had been
proven to work, for him.
With the axle still in the rear end housing I started wacking. I broke that
puller twice. I fixed it so it wouldn't break but It became obvious that it
wasn't going to work on my hubs.
I read the stuff on the Home Page and decided to build one of the Dan
Walters style pullers that Ramon described. I figured I'd give it a try
before I let the local machine shop mess with it. I had all the steel
including a nice 14 inch diameter 1/2 inch plate disk for the base. I
decided to build the puller exactly as shown in the plans. I gave some
thought to reducing the hieght of the whacking surface like Ramon suggested
but shim stock is easy to come by and I was concerned that the length of the
"H" assembly added compliance and that might be part of the trick.
Finding a 7/8 X 14 nut is not an easy task in Northern Sonoma County so I
reversed the castle nut and ran it down so the flat side was flush with the
end of the axle. I used the 3" diameter piece of plate I torched out of the
center of the big round piece plus an additional square of 3/8 inch plate
for a shim. The shim goes between the end of the axle and the bottom side
of the wacking plate. I removed an axel from the rear end housing and
tourqued the plate to the hub and axel assembly using the lug nuts. I
probably torqued the nuts to about 75 ft-lb.
I placed the assembly on the lawn. The round plate gave a good bite into
the lawn while taking pressure off the backing plate. I cleared childeren
and pets out of the down-range area even though the axel nut should prevent
the axel from shooting across the yard. Using a average size sledge hammer
I had the first hub off in two wacks. The second side took about 10 wacks
but it did come off!
I kind of doubt that this method would be suitable for on the car use.
Frank Marrone MK I Tiger B9471116
marrone@wco.com 1966 LTD
Series I Alpine "fix me"
Yamaha Seca 900
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