Long time first time. My brother saved this car last year in Gatesville, Tx.. Built and last raced in central Texas in 1975. Parked as it was last raced. My goal is to rebuild it but keep in original to the time period.
I’m sure there’s a specific answer but likely some kind of heavy duty bearing setup since that corner takes a lot of load
The right front wheel on an oval track car carries a lot of load as the cars enter the corners. Back in the early days, it was not unusual to break the right front spindles on the cars, resorting in some wild crashes. The guys that ran hard back then started adapting spindles from 3/4 ton trucks onto the right front wheel to solve that problem. Many race tracks started requiring the truck "safety" hubs on the right front, as early as the mid 50s. Once the "coupe era" when the 20s & early 30s couples were the popular cars was ending, in the early 1960s (those light weight 20 & 30s cars were getting hard to find by then), the later 50s and 60s cars started getting really heavy. All that round tubing in the 57 shown above was probably 1 1/2" or 2" diameter black (or galvanized water) pipe, some at some tracks were double thickness well pump water pipe. Many of those mid 1960s dirt track cars were over 5,000 lbs. Our local dirt track was a 1/2 mile oval (measured around the inside of track, most were measured around the outside of the track, making our track more like a 5/8 mile track). Our track had long straights with a banked U turn at each end. It was fast! In the mid 60s, those 5,000+lbs cars were doing lap times in the low 24 second range, that put the car's speed near 100 mph at the start of the U turn. Those safety hubs were important here. If the car was set up correctly, through most of the U turn, the left front tire wasn't even on the ground. It was some great racing!
RF safety hub for sure. Looks like it has an old coupe cage in it. Likely black pipe. Heavy but strong.
Great find ! Yes....as others have stated, very often, a 3/4 ton truck hub setup was grafted on the RF to keep the stock spindle from breaking due to the high loading on the RF in turns. I built several of the RF setups back in the day. You would cut the tubular end off a Ford or Chev 3/4 rear axle. You would then machine the inner diameter of the axle stub to fit over the inner brg race support on the original spindle. Then the stub would be welded to the 57 spindle. You then could us the 8 lug hub with it's large bearings. This would require a new center in the stock rim or more likely an available store bought race wheel. Back in the early 1970's when building in Iowa, we could buy blank inner centers from the Weld family in KC and drill them to any bolt pattern we were using. The good ole days......have fun with this project.
Looking at the picture more closely.......a stock 3/4 ton wheel is being used on the RF. Almost looks like it might be a "split rim" with a locking ring holding it all together......do NOT re-use that in any manner or ever try to mount or dismount a tire on it.
That is a 15" truck wheel with the 1 piece lock ring. It has a truck tire tube judging from the valve stem. The wheel has what looks like hubcap clips.
Appreciate the comments, I have an 8 lug racing wheel to go on the right front, the split rim that is on was for transport purposes I believe. The gentleman who built the car was a drag racer and had a Studebaker drag truck. Built this car and apparently did well with it, his last race he went up and over the wall and parked the car and never ran it again. It has a Ford 9' differential, hand clutch, mustang seat, 5 point harness, homemade valve cover breathers. I'll add more pictures as I start the project.
We used bread delivery truck rears as far back as 1977. They were a good width, somechad steep ratios. Sometimes the original leaf springs were used. Weld up the spiders, make up rins with the truck centers. The down side was the wheels couldn't be swapped with the fronts.
The Jalopy Journal
