I had Frank Pavliga from Ohio make these. He does a great job and has all the parts and suppliers set up to make these with drop center rims instead of the original clincher style. Other than that, they are nearly identical to the ones originally on the airplane. As you can obviously see, I had them powder-coated in black.
They're a 20" rim that use 30X5 tires. I've had the tires for several years and just need to get them mounted.
Also, no brakes. I opted quite awhile back to go this route, so it will use the original tail skid as well.
The wheels will also have streamlines like shown in this picture. I borrowed these from the Kelch Museum as a pattern to make new ones. I'll English wheel these out of aluminum and then put a bead roll and flange at the outer edge. I'll include a post on those at a later date.
The wheels are mostly ready to be mounted. My friend Mark helped do a lot of tedious tweaking of the axles to get the camber and toe-in/toe-out correct. The legs were bent more than I originally thought. Being all heavy-walled tubing, the only fix was to use heat and some very long bars to bend them back to where they needed to be. Took a lot of trial and error, but we finally got it.
I need to leave the wheels off, though, until I get the engine mounted. The airplane just sits too high with them on for my engine crane. But, putting the engine on is next on the agenda!
I continue to make good progress on the covering. The upper left wing and aileron are now done. That means both uppers are complete. I'm going to start on the lowers after the first of the year. I would like to have the engine and wheels on as well as a good start on the cowling and sheet metal around the cockpits finished.
So that is what's next. Stay tuned for an update on the engine installation and other misc. things in a couple weeks.
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