Ring gear replacement

Best to do the freezer and oven bit when the boss of the house is away for the day.LOL.

Thanks to all on the flywheel gear info. I will call them. Rudy

Interesting information.. Been doin' a bit of research in my old parts books. The flywheel (134 teeth) gear PN is 166277 for 46 thru 54. not the 48-54 as I thought. Earlier years have the same amount of teeth with a 10" clutch, but have a different PN..Surely they are the same diameter. Perhaps mate up to the flywheel differently?.Makes me wonder if the earlier ring gear may not be interchangeable? At least we now know that the 46-47 ring gear is a good part.

I have a NOS gear now. No doubt it is actually a NORS (not made by Hudson) ,but an aftermarket piece. It looks great and will be installed as soon as the flywheel gets back from the machine shop. In case anyone is intersted, The gear has the following stamped in it on the clutch side "134 SRX W". This might help identify an unknown gear in your parts stash or at a flea market.

Jason,

In a perfect world the Hudson flywheel should last forever. In This case, someone must have run the clutch dry and there is some light scoreing, So I am having the machinest mill the surface, with the instructions of not removing any more than is required to clean it up. The one in my car now is good enough to use "as is", but I want to be able to just swap out the parts and not have it apart any longer than it takes to just switch parts. At my age I forget where I put the parts I take off and then forget where they go when it's time to reassemble..LOL

SuperDave wrote:

After PM'ing Geoff in NZ, He sent me this GREAT information that we need to keep on hand. Here is his response...

"You can interchange any flywheel ring gear from 1934 to 1954, except Jet, and 6 cyl. '34 -'35 A 1934 Hudson 8 flywheel will fit a 1954 Hornet, for instance. I used a 1935 Hudson 8 flywheel on my '50 Pacemaker, and the ring gear was exactly the same. the Jet and '55-'56 Hornets and Wasps used a larger diameter flywheel, Geoff"

So it seems that ALL Hudson 134 tooth ring gears are interchangeable..regardless of P/N.

Now that helps expand the search for early as well as late cars.

Thanks Geoff !

The flywheels from early '41 and earlier are different. They will not interchange with later '41 and later. If you mix the early pressure plate with the late flywheel you will be doing the trans and clutch job again. You need to verify the parts are correct and compatiable with the correct years. I believe as stated here,the ring gears will fit-except the ring gear for the later style-46& up,has another extra cut for easier starter bendix engagement. So if you are using an early ring gear and 12 volts,it will probably cause problems. You should convert the starter anyway but most don't. This is just an educated guess. a '35 h8 flywheel is different than a '50 P. If it worked,it had been changed before and was not correct for the '35. I wanted to add a little bit. I am not trying to discredit Geoff, I think his contribution to the forum and HET club is great. I am just trying make sure that somebody doesn't get the wrong info and try mixing and match parts to find out they don't work-only after they have installed them. It is a lot of work to do over for no reason.Cg

Another thing to be careful of is that some of the 34-5 terraplanes use a 107 tooth ring gear as they are a lot courser and sound like it too. The 134 gears are a lot smoother in operation. I think I have both in stock.

In saying that, the parts book I have here in Australia list them as above and I know the '34 Hudson I had was 107 teeth.

Clutch guy wrote:

The flywheels from early '41 and earlier are different. They will not interchange with later '41 and later. If you mix the early pressure plate with the late flywheel you will be doing the trans and clutch job again. You need to verify the parts are correct and compatiable with the correct years. I believe as stated here,the ring gears will fit-except the ring gear for the later style-46& up,has another extra cut for easier starter bendix engagement. So if you are using an early ring gear and 12 volts,it will probably cause problems. You should convert the starter anyway but most don't. This is just an educated guess. a '35 h8 flywheel is different than a '50 P. If it worked,it had been changed before and was not correct for the '35. I wanted to add a little bit. I am not trying to discredit Geoff, I think his contribution to the forum and HET club is great. I am just trying make sure that somebody doesn't get the wrong info and try mixing and match parts to find out they don't work-only after they have installed them. It is a lot of work to do over for no reason.Cg

Doug, Thank You, Good information. Glad to see you chime in. You have more experience in these matters that I. The more information we can record, the better off our hobby is.

In the matter of the "cut" on the flywheel gears.......

I have three flywheel ring gears in the following photo. Top one is an original very worn. The middle one is new from Colorado and the bottom one is new from Ohio. I CAN see the difference in the cut. The Ohio one is very much the same as the original but looks like they needed to replace the cutters or stones on the machine that cut the front groove.It has a lot of grooves in the cut. The Colorado one is a neater cut, but about .020 more shallow on the face. Doesn't look like an extra cut was made on the later ring gears but the angle was changed to increase the initial depth.. (If that I am making any sense.) I can see that the deeper angle would aid in meshing with the pinion or bendix gear. I'll use the known correct one on my car and set the other up as a spare. I doubt I will need it since I am also correcting the 12 volt/Vs 6 volt problem. The Electric shop that is installing the fields said my flyheel gear problems are not a result of the 12 volts, but of all the Hudsons I've had, all 6 volts, I have never had a ring gear problem until I did this 12 volt conversion on my 49. Me thinks the front engaging Hydramatic and Borg Warner starters are less prone to damaging the ring gear on 12 volts. I only know of one of these and so far (four years) Not one problem. The armature shaft is much shorter on them and less chance of a misalignment. I have one of the standard shift starters that has a bent shaft. That WILL do damage!

So My recommendation of the source in Colorado comes with the warning, that it is an earlier design and would probably work OK on 6 Volts.

Considering that the design was used successfully for years.

You are right, a bent shaft can cause all these problems.The only cure that I know of is replacing the bent armature. Don't feel bad, I have TWO of them that are bent.Thank goodness I have one that is not. Someday I am going to try and set up a jig to hold the starter and try to bend 'em back! A lathe would be nice to have, but i don't have one. My starter guy didn't seem interested at all.

One other problem that has been mentiond elsewhere here on the forum is the studs that the starter is bolted on with. Sometimes they are missing or damged and someone substitutes regular bolts. NOT A GOOD IDEA.. The studs that Hudson used have a larger diameter knurled center that is captive between the transmission bell housing and the engine plate. If they are not used, the starter will not be aligned with the flywheel. That's one problem that I had. Someone forgot to put them in whole reassembling the engine/tranny. The bolts allowed the starter to move away from the flywheel. The armature was bent before the previous owner brought it to me. I ended up with the car eventually and I replaced it when I rebuilt the engine. I also put a better ring gear in at the same time, but still messed it up.