Lyons super rear drum puller Rev A

Craig, one can imagine the rear drums were modified to incorporate the 4 ears because the repair shops were having the same problem pulling drums way back when. Like others have reported, when my drums came off the tapers looked as clean as the day they were assembled, corrosion wasn’t the issue keeping them stuck on. At any rate, it seems like if you don’t have the option of the 4 ears, the next best alternative is pull the drums from the wheel studs, and the best hope of doing that without pranging the drum is pull on all five studs evenly and progressively. A thought for doing it with the same idea of the pipe flange caps is machine a larger flange cap with five slots to match the 5 wheel studs, see attached drawing. The flange cap comes with 4 pre-drilled holes but of course 4 holes don’t line up with 5 wheel studs. Then get 5 coupling nuts and bolts. the coupling nuts would screw onto the wheel studs. I believe 1/2-20 fine thread is what my ’35’s are, and I confirmed 1/2-20 coupling nuts are available from McMaster Carr. I think such a puller would have very good stability and not come flying off as long as the axle nut is on the axle flush with the end of the shaft (leaves ~1/4″ movement for the drum when it pops off the taper).

One of the worries is that this arrangement is probably a lot stronger than the drum itself and capable of breaking the studs or drum long before the puller fails.

I only know my ’35’s dimensions, other models likely have different wheel studs and dimensions, so don’t take my little sketch verbatim.

Jim

If as Rick notes you have threads on the end of the drum, that could make for another variation on the pipe flange idea that would not require pulling on the studs. An unthreaded pipe flange could be machined and threaded to screw directly onto the drum hub center thread, then another matching flange cap placed on the axle+axle nut and four bolts put through the four holes in the flanges. Actually less machining, except for the inside thread part that is beyond my (low) skill level. Keeping the axle nut on means everything is trapped and nothing will come flying off. Didn’t know anyone was in the business of building new pullers, sounds like a good place to start.

Jim

Bill, interesting. Noted the pullers for 31-32 Pierce for the “specialized shop”!

Just had more fun with rear wheel bearings. After inspecting the rear differential which was a thing of beauty and a joy forever, thought I might get by with good rear axle bearings. No such luck, so had to pull them. After looking through PASB’s apparently some of you guys can punch out roller bearing cups banging away at a 45 degree angle (or I am missing something). At any rate I’m not that good and prone to pounding on my hand instead of the punch, so I ended up grinding the legs down of a small 3-leg puller and used it inside out and backwards to grab the bearing cup at the three machined indents in the hub. Seems like there should be an adaptable puller out there for this, but I couldn’t find one.