Hello
I have the same problem.
I have steel hollow axle and brake plates. When I tighten the nuts up on the hollow axle I am only half way down on the nut threads. So, I decided to measure this all up. My axle length is 5 15/16". (It looks like the axle manufacturing quality control is not good. We have three axle lengths recorded in this thread alone!) The gap between the girdraulic blades in 6 1/16". I measured the spacer washers and on the left side is 4.8mm and on the right side 5.1mm. My assumption is that the brake plates are buckled. I made up a home made rig based on a wheel balancing table, a hang glider instrument clamp and a run out gauge. The run out on the left side plate was 50thou" and the run out of the right plate is 70thou". My brake plates are definately buckled. My apologies for the mixed measurement systems.
My conclusion is that the brake plates are buckled. Therefore I have to add more spacers to make up for the buckle. That is why the nuts do not fit fully.
However is my case if I did get rid of the buckle on the plates and wound the nuts in then the whole would be too narrow for the Girdraulic blades. Perhaps my wheel & girdraulics were assembled this way to compensate for the buckled plates?
Question. How does one fix buckled brake plates? Can they be turned down on a lathe or is it a case on new plates?
Regards
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
It turned out that my plates were slightly buckled too.
I ended up shimming out the plate until it was just about acceptable but this meant the thin nuts would not screw on fully.
I also thought about skimming the brakes plates on the lathe but decided better of it.
However, I mounted the wheel assembly in the forks and the remainder of the binding brake plate disappeared!
It seems that the slight buckle was eliminated as I tightened up the long wheel spindle !!?
The distance between the fork blades was slightly wider than the complete wheel assembly but, of course, was taken up when tightening the long wheel spindle
By the way the hollow wheel spindles that Maughans produce are 5.15/16" long.
Phil