The 8 hole wheel pattern – Update #51

The first hurdle of the Doodlebug build was finding the 10 lug, 8 hole, 20″ Budd style wheels. After failing to source the correct wheels, we had to improvise and recreate the original hole pattern.

Read more: The 8 hole wheel pattern – Update #51

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Edward Budd

I began searching for some information on the Budd Wheel Company, only to find that the history behind this business branched out into some very unexpected areas of the transport industry.

The parent company, the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company, was founded by Edward Budd in Philadelphia in 1912.

The company manufactured a diverse range of transportation products, and its first major contract was an order of 5,000 steel bodies from the Dodge Brothers Company for their new touring model. In 1916, the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company produced its 100,000th Dodge touring car body. That same year, Budd formed the Budd Wheel Company to manufacture steel wire wheels as a move away from the wooden spoke wheels of that era.

Sales of steel auto bodies continued to climb, and by 1921, Budd had produced 1,000,000 bodies. This milestone was despite Budd changing direction throughout World War 1 to manufacture steel helmets, artillery wheels, shell casings, etc.

Edward Budd was a visionary of automotive design and the associated art deco influence of that era. He and his company were not only innovative in car body design and production, but they also developed components, mechanical systems, and even engineering techniques.

“In 1930, he designed an experimental front-wheel drive system, which found its way into the Citroen in 1934. That same year, Budd developed the body for the Chrysler Airflow, and one year later, the Lincoln Zephyr.“

Source: https://www.workshopoftheworld.com/nicetown/budd.html

The Budd company was influential in the US and considered to be “at the forefront of modern design in the 1920s and ’30s”. I believe this reputation would have been cemented further when Budd contracted a freelance artist named Alexis de Sakhnoffsky in 1933. I have added a link at the end that is well worth the read and details his extensive career.

De Sakhnoffsky was a well-known industrial designer, particularly of streamlined vehicles, who worked with all the big players in the automotive industry during this era. But it seems he was best known for designing the 1929 Cord L-29, a design that he had drawn up for himself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNeCydd2Y_4

With the onset of the Great Depression, auto sales declined, so Edward Budd began looking to diversify his operations. In the late 1920s, Budd’s chief engineer of the railway division, Earl J. W. Ragsdale, invented and developed the “Shotwell Electric Process”. This welding technique enabled sheets of stainless steel to be joined together “without damaging anti-corrosion properties”. I really need Simon Tippin’s help here, but quoting from what I have read, it is a precisely controlled form of electric resistance welding that ‘sews’ together sheets of metal (normally stainless steel) with rows of uniform spot welds.

Using this technique, Budd created the world’s first stainless steel aeroplane, the Budd BB1 Pioneer, as a prototype in 1931.

The Budd BB1 Pioneer logged 1,700 hours of flight demonstrations but was never put into production. It was presented to the Franklin Institute in 1935 for exhibition and was displayed in front of the museum. Astonishingly, it has remained there for the past 90 years and has only ever been removed twice for maintenance, with the most recent conservation work occurring in 2016.

Further information on the aircraft and the museum can be found in the following link:

https://fi.edu/en/budd-bb1-pioneer-aircraft

Continuing with his successful shot welding achievements, Edward Budd expanded his production line and designed and produced four iconic streamlined stainless steel trains – the Burlington Pioneer Zephyr, the Twin Zephyr, the Mark Twain Zephyr, and the Flying Yankee. The first to be unveiled was the Pioneer Zephyr in 1934, followed by the other three trains in 1935.

I suspect that Budd’s achievements are not widely known these days, so it only feels right to add some of his historic builds to this topic. Further history of the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company is detailed in the links provided at the end of this post.

After venturing a little off track (no pun intended), I have circled back to the division of the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company that is most pertinent to the Doodlebug.

The Budd Wheel Company became heavily involved with truck wheels and is credited with developing the stud-piloted wheel system, particularly for medium and heavy-duty trucks. 

The company popularised the traditional stud pilot wheel system, which uses the wheel studs and lug nuts to centre the wheel on the hub. Both the lug nuts and the stud holes (also referred to as lug holes) in the wheel are tapered to ensure proper alignment as the lug nuts are tightened during mounting. This wheel system supports the distributed weight of the vehicle on the studs themselves. The large central hole allows for hub clearance, and the wheel is visually identifiable by the tapered lug holes.

The more modern hub piloted wheel system acts as the name suggests. The hubs have machined surfaces or ridges called ‘hub pilots’ which act as a guide when the wheel is fitted on the hub. This ensures the wheel is precisely centred over the hub and the weight of the vehicle is carried on the actual hubs. Visually, the hub piloted wheel differs from the Budd style wheel due to its smooth lug holes. The hub piloted wheels became commonplace in 2000, and they are now the preferred mounting system for heavy-duty trucks.

While various companies manufactured the stud pilot wheel in the 20th century, the Budd name became synonymous with this system and ‘Budd wheels’ has become a generic term for this particular style of wheel.

Typically, Budd truck wheels have 8 or 10 lugs, and 6 or 8 holes. Finding the right combination down here in New Zealand proved to be a very frustrating and fruitless exercise!

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The Modifications

In 2023, we were gifted some 10 lug, 6 hole, 20″ wheels from Ian Spedding.

When Steve first explained to me that we were going to weld up the 6 holes and recreate the Texaco Doodlebug’s 8 hole pattern, I didn’t appreciate at the time the complexity of what was involved. The patches that were to be welded in would have to follow the exact dual contours of the wheel itself.

Steve ran the idea of the required welding past a couple of people who commented on how difficult it was going to be. Late last year, Greg Pavlovich from GP Engineering here in Auckland took on the challenge and began considering different ways of creating the patches.

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Creating the 8 Hole Pattern

Tom Andrews and Greg McDell from the Classics Museum kept an eye out last year for Steve for any old Budd style wheels that they might come across. While the exact configuration was never found, Tom and Greg managed to source a small selection of both 8 and 10 lug wheels. These wheels would prove to be invaluable as the modifications began.

The rivets on the remaining ten lug Budd wheels still had to be removed to separate the centres from the rims, so Greg McDell and Alan Sharpe helped Steve out by working on a wheel each.

Steve arranged for the Budd wheels to be sandblasted and primed before delivering them to Greg Pavlovich at GP Engineering.

Greg began trialling some patches but soon realised the logical way forward would be to cut them out of existing wheels of the same curvature.

Using the donor wheels provided, Greg proceeded to cut out curved pieces that would be used to create the patches needed to weld up the 6 hole pattern.

Greg created a template for the holes to be filled and cut out each patch. He then systematically tack welded, then fully welded four patches into each wheel. The tyre valve stem hole, and the window opposite, are both a larger size compared to the other holes on the 8 hole pattern so these were left untouched.

Once the wheels were linished around the completed patched areas, Greg had a blank canvas ready to mark out and cut new holes in the wheel centres.

Greg created a template from the original 8 hole wheel and then made a cardboard pattern to use on the fully patched wheels.

The template was spaced out, measured and marked as per the original 8 hole example that we had.

To complete the wheel modifications, Greg’s final task was to rivet the centres to the rims. Once reassembled, the very outer edges of the holes are slightly concealed inside the rim, as shown in the original wheel image earlier in this post.

We are very appreciative of Greg for persevering with these wheels and finding a solution to give us the 8 hole pattern that we need for the Doodlebug project.

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The Tyres

While searching for suitable tyres last year, I came across an old formula that was used to calculate the approximate height of early bias ply tyres. The calculation doubled the section width and then added the rim diameter. So the 20 x 11.25 would roughly measure 42 1/2” in height and the 20 x 9.75 would be approximately 39 1/2″, giving a 3” height difference from front to rear. 

On this basis, we ordered the tyres for the Doodlebug late last year. Rather than focusing on the 11.25 and 9.75 sizes, we looked instead to match the heights of the modern tyres to the heights of the tyres used originally. The sizes we eventually ordered were an 11.00 R20 with an overall diameter of 42.72”and a 9.00 R20 with an overall diameter of 40.12”, giving a height difference of approximately 2 3/4”. I think that will be close enough!

The tyres landed in Auckland in February this year and are being stored temporarily for us at a warehouse. Steve dropped by shortly after they arrived and took a couple of photos of our latest purchase.

It was a challenge to find modern tyres with a tread pattern that was even remotely similar to the original, early bias ply tread. Our thanks to Rob Gosling for his patience and help in sourcing these tyres.

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Steve is now tidying up the wheels in preparation for painting. He will initially only paint the outer edge of the rims so that the tyres can be fitted. The wheel centres and the remainder of the rims will be left in primer as the build progresses to avoid any potential damage to the paint.

I can’t wait to get these wheels and tyres back home and see them in the flesh. The front 11.25 tyre was 55% of the overall height of the 1933 Diamond T Texaco Special!

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Sources and References:

https://fi.edu/en/budd-bb1-pioneer-aircraft

https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/budd-company

https://hubcityrrmuseum.org/sites/hubcityrrmuseum.org/files/newsletters/CRHA%20Carolina%20Conductor%202016-07.pdf

https://www.workshopoftheworld.com/nicetown/budd.html

https://maine3railers.org/wp-content/uploads/M3R-Budd-Cars.pdf

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/1210dp-october-2012-baselines-budd-wheel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_welding

http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/d/desakhnoffsky/desakhnoffsky.htm