Well That Kind of Sucks

The straight leg treadle is going on the inactive roster.  Here's the last photo before it will be taken apart and stored at least through the summer.

The problem is the flywheel shaft.  On straight legs it's 3.5".  And they don't grow on trees.  Unlike the 4.75" on the regular treadles which you can't swing a dead cat without hitting.  I had all the drive parts from a 4.75" laying around and put it most of the way together.  For the shaft I thought I had found a solution on Ebay.  Unfortunately the dealer has questions blocked, so no way to be for sure.  I went ahead and bought the shaft since it looked shorter than the 4.75", and it was.  It was 4.5".  Well crap, never buy from someone who blocks questions.  I'll be tossing it back up on Ebay for the next person, after I polish it up a bit.  I will answer questions, and include the measurements in the description.  Lesson learned.

On the not so bad side.  I have a friend from my home town who restores old drag racers.  He has an awesome set of tools. We've been chatting and if he ever gets the time he's willing to cut down the 4.75 shaft to fit.  The tricky part is the space has to come from two specific areas so that the shaft set screw hole will still align with the fly wheel set screw hole, the fly wheel will align with the head's hand wheel and the pitman will align with the shaft without grinding against the support brace.

What looks like a bad alignment with my marks on the far left is actually accurate.  I need to cut into the machining after the cone bearing 1/10" to get the correct spacing.

In the first photo you might notice the bad base is still hanging around.  While I was working on the 15-87 I realized a need for a cheap stand I don't mind damaging.  I dug it out of the trash.  Thanks to whoever in Tennessee made this thing 50 years or so ago.