Custom Front Hubs

I need to make another set of custom hubs for my wheels on the front of my craftsman and I'm  just seeing if there would be any interest in me making a few extra sets and selling them. (I could possibly continue making them too if the demand is there.)

The hubs will work on stock 3/4in spindles with just a slight modification to the inner wheel seat if it uses the cap shaped style.

The housing is dom tubing with with two bearing recess bored into it.
The bearings will be a good quality sealed ball bearings that will utilize a pressed in fitment in the hub.  
The plate where the wheel bolts up to will either be 5/16 or 3/8 thick (depends on what my local steel yard carries.)  
Wheel studs will be automotive style pressed in ones.    

When i make my hubs they will be setup for a 4 on a 110mm bolt pattern that uses m10 wheel studs.
Then for the finish of them - I can keep it cheap and you assemble and weld them up yourself.  OR i can finish them and powder coat them black.  

Price point. - Not sure yet  I know the wheel studs a 2.98 a pc, bearing are almost 4 dollars each (I think I could find cheaper ones).  I'm going to outsource the machine work this time so I'm waiting on a price for that and the price of the metal for them.


Now here is where it gets tricky if I was to keep making / offering  them do I try and custom tailor each set to the order or just offer a few select styles and that is it.

Bolt pattern - There are so many 100mm 110mm 115mm ect.   (And remember sport quads ran a really big bolt pattern on their front ends like 144mm and 156mm.  Then don't forget Kawasaki did a lot with a 4 on 4in bolt pattern, and golf carts run that  bolt pattern too.

Wheel stud size - most atvs run a m10 but a lot of UTV's run an m12. Then the 4 on 4, I've seen with a 7/16 stud 1/2 stud and a metric stud.  (Every different stud size will need adifferent size of hole drilled for it to  get pressed into. )

So what do y'all think , feel free to give me your input, suggestions ect.
Or let me know if your interested in a set.
Ps. Rears are in the works too.


Here are some pics of what they will look like.

those are pretty sweet, how are you cutting out the disc? you have a burn table or a lathe?

A lathe.

My lathe is on the smaller scale and the disc are a pain to setup on it.  So this go around in going to build some sort of fixture plate to hold them, just to speed up the setup time.

Hey, question about the hubs you are custom making. I am trying to slap some front atv tires and rims on my 3/4" transaxle and want to make a hub that i can remove should i upgrade wheels. My question is where do you get the pipe with the bore? Did you make it?
Thanks

You may or may not get a response from the OP because this thread hasn't been active in almost 3 years but I'll try to help with possible solutions. Also he made front hubs with bearings and it sounds like you're doing it on the rear so how the hub and axle connect is very important.

Alot of guys get hubs from GoPowerSports, you can check it out here  
https://www.gopowersports.com/search-results/?q=hubs

Or you can make your own using a spare set of wheels as shown here
https://www.atltf.com/t3990-atv-hubs

Another option would be to mount the tires on your tractor rims IF they are for the same wheel size BUT you would want to use tubes inside them because the holding force of the beads on tractor wheels is not as strong as on ATV wheels.  

I hope this helps, welcome to the forum and I encourage you to introduce yourself by making a thread in the new member forum "introduce yourself here" thread!

Cool looking tractor btw!

@murrayman2.0  You can also find keyed hubs on BMI karts. I've used them before quite a few times and never had an issue. They should have whatever size hubs you need, either keyed or bearing hubs. I actually needed some more coverage with mine for the right spacing, so I bought keyed lock collars and welded them to the hub. I also added an extra locking bolt by drilling a hole and welding a nut. That's how the old sears suburbans held the back hubs on.

I like that idea @mr.modified
I have the same hubs and plan to put two set screws in the hubs themselves, plus the keepers that the peerless axle has just for insurance.

Nice work on those hubs.

I finally have parts on the way so i can modify the hubs and get on with things.]

Wow, thank you guys so much for the quick responses and the friendly greetings. mr.modified, i like the system you have set up with the collar that fits over what i would guess to be a peerless transaxle (what i've got) and then welding a plate and bolts to that. That is what i was trying to do but finding that keyed collar was the tough part. The diameter on my live axel of the peerless transaxle is 3/4", so my plan was to find a collar and weld the plate with bolts. Since i have a 4" bolt pattern (front atv wheels) i cant find stuff on GoPowerSports, and the ones they do have are so expensive, $25 apiece! I need to check out that site one of you mentioned and find a collar.
Brianator, i did think of putting tires on the stock rims, but since this build i am putting the stock rears in the front and atv rims in the back, i cant do that (fearless front style).
Thanks again for your imputs, highy appreciated.

Got ya! Depending on where you're located depends on where you can get stuff, here in Canada I can get those keyed sleeve collars and weld on pre-drilled wheel flanges at Princess Auto which from my understanding is very similar to Harbor Frieght in the US. Grainger is another place I see mentioned alot here for supplies and of course a multitude of online sources. I just did a quick search on Amazon and eBay for "go kart wheel hub" and a bunch of results (nothing specific) started popping up so there's another possible source for you.

Good luck in your quest and don't be shy!

Since this was about ‘front hubs’, I will mention that Surplus Center has 8” wheels with real bearings, 3/4” bore for $5.99 each. Of course shipping was 22 bucks, but I needed some wheels.

Awesome, thank you guys. Will check out the sites mentioned.

More good news on custom front hubs. Seems that BMI karts has ‘hub weldments’ for cheap. They take standard 3/4” bearings. I can’t buy a piece of pipe and machine it, much less ship it for this much!



This and a bit of cutting and welding will do the front hubs on the JeepTor.

I just need something like that that has a 3/16 keway machined into it, then weld a plate with bolts to the collar. I dont have a lathe or cnc yet...when i get my own shop:D

murrayman2.0 wrote:

I just need something like that that has a 3/16 keway machined into it, then weld a plate with bolts to the collar. I dont have a lathe or cnc yet...when i get my own shop:D

So you need this........1.25" OD x 3/4" ID x 1/4" Wall DOM Seamless Round Tube

and this............................
DUMONT 3/16"-B HSS KEYWAY BROACH MADE IN USA + 3 BUSHINGS

And i need a lathe and cnc...but i do have a friend that could help with that. Thank you guys!

Back to front hubs.

I was just looking at delivery on the wheels I ordered. Look at these again… the deep side of the rim is the side with the hole for the valve stem.





If I cut the shallow side off of the wheel, leaving the entire hub and bearing setup intact, then cut the deep side off of the craftsman wheel and weld it on… the deep side is the back side on the craftsman.



I should have a good set of wheels with nowhere near the effort involved with removing the center and welding in another.

Measurements will be needed of course. Wheels due here on Tuesday.

I got the idea for cutting the wheels from @diddie ‘s build off entry. He made hubs by cutting the centers out of wheels. I just realized there is a possibility of making 2 piece rims by using both center sections. Hmmm…

Diddie’s pictures of where he cut his wheels to get the center section out:

I got the wheels from surplus center today. They are excellent quality, heavy thick steel wheels. Now to decide what to do with them. They are 5.5” inside the bead ring.

Nevadablue wrote:

I got the wheels from surplus center today. They are excellent quality, heavy thick steel wheels. Now to decide what to do with them. They are 5.5” inside the bead ring.

Can't hardly wait to see what you do with them, I just got some parts in from other sources for my front axle but one of the hubs was a light duty hub, ticked me off a bit.

I like shopping surplus center they have a lot of stuff at good prices but shipping can be expensive, I would love to have a retail store nearby.

Shipping was high for sure. I got hub blanks from BMI karts and bearing kit from Amazon too. The BMI parts are shown above, good heavy duty stuff. Got those yesterday. The bearing kit is good too with bearings, hub caps, washer/spacers and c-clips.

Wow that's a good set! Even has shim washers and the outside washer too! What's that worth?

If you need a 3/4 I'd hub with a 3/16 keyway in it, I usually get mine from surplus center they have some that are around 3in long (there not to expensive the last time I bought them but that's been awhile. And like others said their shipping is expensive.)  
Tractor supply has some short ones but the have a lip machined in the one end to fit pulleys and such.
Sometimes you can find some on eBay too at a good price.

I bought the bmi karts hub kit before and was not impressed with it, mainly the bearings that came it.  They also offered some aluminum hubs that had a 3/4 bore with a 3/16 keyway but they were never in stock when I wanted them and I haven't checked back in on them in awhile.

Ps sorry for the late response been out of town for awhile

Brianator wrote:

Wow that's a good set! Even has shim washers and the outside washer too! What's that worth?

LOL, not sure what it is worth, but it cost $16.05 shipped. You can get bearings cheaper, but I needed the other parts too.

I'm sorry, are these front hubs being custom made to fit atv rims with a bolt pattern? My situation is putting the rears in the front with no bearings at all (unless i get another set of atv tires)

Not sure who you are asking.

I’m not sure what I will do with the hubs/wheels. My plan is to use rear wheels on the front and somehow add bearings. It will probably be welded in hubs, not bolted on. I don’t have any wheels I would use for that so modifying the centers of the rear wheels to accept bearings is my thought.
I bought a hole saw to cut out the centers of the rear wheels for welding in those bearing sleeves shown above.



That should make a slip fit hole for the sleeves. I need to make an ‘axle’ with the flats ground on it, and a center hole for a guide so I guarantee the hole saw cuts accurately in the center of the wheel.

The axle looks like this now, so grinding flats on a 3/4” shaft will work I think.



Drilling a center hole should insure concentricity. I would cut off a FNR axle, but I don’t have any total junkers.