Stanley Museum

The Stanley Museum, Inc. commemorates and preserves the heritage of Stanley family genius. The famous “Stanley Steamer” automobile was invented by Francis Edgar Stanley and manufactured by him and his twin brother, Freelan Oscar Stanley (from Stanley Museum website also located in Kingfield, Maine).

A Brief history of Locomobile

F.E. Stanley built three small steam cars in 1897 and 1898 and with his twin F.O. exhibited one of them at a public horseless carriage show at Charles River Park in November, 1898. Due to a fantastic public response, they decided to start producing these cars commercially. Before this could actually happen, however, John Brisben Walker, owner of Cosmopolitan magazine, and Amzi Lorenzo Barber, the nation's leading producer of asphalt, purchased the rights to the Stanley car. Almost immediately, these two partners separated, each having the rights to produce the Stanley car. Walker went down to New York to start work on what was to come the Mobile steamer while Barber remained in Watertown, Massachusetts, to produce the Locomobile. (from The Genealogy of the "Locomobile" Steam Carriage by Donald L. Ball)

I have added a link in my "Interesting Lykamobile Links" section pointing to this little 55 page booklet "The Genealogy of the "Locomobile" Steam Carriage 1899-1904" for anybody that might want to purchase (it only costs $8.00 plus shipping). It is an interesting book with details and pictures of various parts and Locomobile cars.

Lyka Kit #5 & #7 Part 2 Front Wheels & Brake Disc & Calipers

In this kit you must first place the outer taper bearing race into the each side of the wheel hubs. The Wheel hubs are of aluminum, so make sure that there isn't any damage to the inside diameter from a knick or scratch that might have occurred from handling. I saw a ding on one of my hubs that was raised up that I took care of with the small rounded half file. Once you are satisfied with the interior hub surface, you need to squirt some bearing retaining adhesive on the interior of the hub and some on the outer bearing race and press each outer bearing race into the hubs.

Inside Hub.

Outer Bearing Race

Positioning outer bearing race.

Tapping the bearing race into the hub.

Next I place the Front Hub Spacer aligning all the holes to the M6 tapped holes.

And then I place the Brake Disc aligning the holes. (Later I will change out for Stainless Steel and apply some medium thread lock on them)

And temporarily fixing the disc with five M6 Csk Flat Head Screws.

Now it is time to pack the bearings with grease.

Then you need to place the inner hub wheel bearing into the hub and press the Grease Seal next into the inner hub. Don't press the seal too far into the hub. This will impede the bearing from rotating. I placed the seals flush with the hub.

Inner Bearing placed into the Hub.

 Seal into the inner hub.

Next trial assemble the wheel to the front wheel spindle.

 Placing the outer bearing into the hub.

 Securing with the M14 washer and Castle Nut.

And here we go !! HUH OH ! A slight interference fit with the brake disc to the steering spindle weldment.

No worries, bring out the flap sanding disc right angle drive and away it goes.

Test assembled it again.

Next I test assemble the disc caliper. And even though Steam Traction World made an adjustment to the Front Hub Spacer the disc pads on the inner side where very tight.

In fact I decided that the Front Hub Spacers needed to be faced off another 0.020 inch (0.5 mm). I took the hub spacer to a local machine shop to have this done. In retrospect I believe I could have taken another 0.015 inches off and this would have been better. I reassembled the front wheels and retested everything. The wheels still dragged a little on the disc pads. This would wear clear eventually, but I decided to make a few more modifications to allow me to adjust the caliper alignment better to the disc. The first thing I did was to grind/file off the counter bored holes on the calipers.

Counter-bored holes on Calipers

Counter-bored holes filed off.

And I opened up the mounting holes to about 11.5 mm (from 10 mm diameter). I made some thick flat washers/spacers to place over the mounting nubs on the steering spindle. This provides more surface to mount the calipers.

Mounted caliper.

As you can see, I now have some daylight on both sides of the brake pads next to the disc.

And the wheels spins with just a slight ring to it from the disc not being totally flat or parallel to the spindle axes, but pretty darn good.

 

And the final touch assembly of the hub cap.

And below you see I have modified the right disc by Wire EDM (Electro-Discharge-Machining) a gear tooth profile for driving a Model T Speedometer that I plan to install later.

Now that everything is assembled I did unscrew the flat head steel screws on the two front discs and replaced them with stainless steel flat head screws. I added a touch of medium strength thread locker to the middle of the threads. I thought that I really didn't want to glue the whole length of the thread because it might be a difficult task removing the screws someday. In this case less is better.

And the final product of Kits 1 through 7.

Lyka Kit #6 - Springs

Three sets of springs, each having a pair of five leaf springs. That's a lot of prep work.

The leaf springs had a lot of scale from the manufacturing process due to the heat treatment. The quickest method I found was to sand blast each. This took me approximately 2 1/2 hours for each pair of springs. I found the surface of the springs to be rather ragged so I opted to prime the springs in a heavy duty rust preventative primer (Rustoleum).

This primer you really need to let cure for several days. The worse thing you want is to push it and paint over this before it has properly dried/cured. Ask me how I know! I have experience in the past with stripping down my work because the paint crinkled from applying the second coat too soon. Next I applied a second coat of Marine Gray Primer.

The manufacturer called for 12 hours before top coating. I waited a few days before flipping the springs and painting the other side. I top coated with the bright red yacht paint and again waited a few days and flipping the springs to paint the other side. I did wait another week before handling for final assembly.

Steam Traction World suggest that no grease or lubricant should be used on the leaves themselves, however I have used for other leaf springs UHMWP (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene) in the past with success. You can get this material in various widths and lengths and with a self backing adhesive too. It is used between parts to minimize squeaks and rattles. UHMWP provides a nonstick, low-friction surface. I acquired a couple of rolls from McMaster-Carr. I chose the 1 inch wide x 0.007 inches thick - 18 yards and 5 yards. I hoped that 18 yards would have been enough, however I chose to put the tape on both sides of the leaves. 

The blue tape is the backing that is removed from the UHMWP tape exposing the adhesive. You will notice that I used painter's blue masking tape to mark where the UHMWP tape should start and end on the bottom leaf. All I did was place the above spring on the lower spring to gauge where the blue painter's tape should be placed.

The next image shows both mating surfaces with the tape applied.

Of course you have to cut out the holes. I created a lot of sticky dots that got all over my sleeves :) My first attempt of assembling the two halves didn't work out. All of the springs came to me from Steam Traction World assembled in their raw unfinished form, and disassembly of the springs of course allowed the springs to relax. As you can see in the next image, there was no way to get these aligned without further cajoling.

So I brought out my wood clamps and squeezed the springs thereby elongating the lower leaf. You will notice that I assembled the upper half to stiffen that side so its elongation would be minimized allowing me to align the bronze bushing to the upper leaf spring.

And final assembly.

So at this point I repeat this again for the next two pair of springs and assemble all the leaves. Now I wished I had test fitted on the chassis because unbeknown to me, the channels where the leaf springs are mounted are about 0.040 inch interference fit. Could the paint be that thick? No, but it does add to the issue. My best solution was to mark off on each small leaf spring where the interference fit is and use my belt sander to remove from each side of the smallest leaf spring enough material to allow for the parts to fit (and then a little extra to allow for a final coat of paint).

 All assembled to the chassis!