I am SO glad I come from a less litigious time. My old Jeep would not have been half as much fun as it was otherwise.
Our old mechanic was one of those mechanical geniuses that come along every so often.
My father had gotten his, later my, 60 model CJ-5 stuck again.
The Konig PTO winch had gotten it out just fine, but he wanted to lessen the times he had to use it.
The mechanic said he would see what he could do.
Went over to a machine shop and started drawing.
I think I can describe this....... All sizes are 40 year old guesstimates.
They took a piece of 1/2 inch flat steel. Cut it out round to a diameter that would just fit inside a stock wheel.
Turned out a hole in center like a doughnut that was bigger than the center hole of a stock wheel.
Bored lug holes on the same pattern as stock.
They tapered those holes so that the smallest part was the same size as the largest part of the stock taper.
If you laid the piece on a wheel and sighted down through the lug holes, you would see a smooth taper all the way down.
Took a piece of double extra duty steel pipe, turned down the end to a press fit for the center hole of that piece with a slightly smaller step on the end.
Pressed the pipe into the round piece, which left a small gap in the back side due to that step.
Welded the front side, and then welded up the gap on the back side and surfaced it smooth.
Cut the pipe off at maybe 8-10 inches, no idea, just a guess.
Made another round piece to press on that end and weld.
Drilled standard pattern holes and pressed in lugs.
Then they took standard lug nuts, welded on extensions and tapered them so that they would fit both the inside spacer plate and the wheel.
Thus the lugs aligned both the wheel and the spacer so they ran true.
I would put on a standard wheel, put on the spacer, then the special lugs.
Tighten them down with a long pull handle.
Then put the second wheel on the outside.
The whole setup ran so true that after the wheels were balanced, I could run 60 with no vibration on the highway.
If either rear tire went flat, I could drive home on the other one, no problem.
If a front went flat, I could take off the outside rear and put it on the front.
They put a tapered running board from the frame out. Started where the front fender hit the body just under the door hinge, and tapered out to a big hoop over the rear tire.
If I came too close to a tree, which happened many times, the running board would just slide me away.
Of course, one memorable occasion, before I got used to it, I was driving a little too fast and tried to go between two pine trees.
Not only did I wedge the jeep between the two, but I must have hit a bump just as I did, because my wheels were barely touching the ground.
Winching forward would have cracked the frame, so I had to get out the back hatch and chop one of the trees down with a small hand hatchet.
I don't know how many miles I put on those duals over about 10 years of driving. Wore out lots of tires, and did things that people still talk about.
Never had a failure of the dual system.
I know a few people, so I could probably get something like that built today, but it would probably be a cash only, we never saw you sort of thing.......
