TOPIC: Removing teleflex wheel

I have an older Teleflex steering setup, 3/4" tapered shaft with keyway, and the worlds scroungiest looking old plastic wheel. I have several wheel/gear pullers but on this plastic Teleflex wheel there are no tapped holes to bolt the puller to, and no solid area to attach the hook type puller jaws to. Anyone have any ideas on how to get this thing off?

If you are not worryed about the wheel, break it off with a hammer and chiesl or hit it with a torch. If you want to save the wheel soak it in PB blaster for a couple of days and then give it a couple of sharp blows with a hammer. This is a common problem lots of us on the forum have run into. Good luck with it. Skip.

Thanks Skip. I'll either break off or more likely cut off the plastic part with a Dremel then maybe I can get a hook type puller on the remaining metal hub.

I too had a hard time with a puller set. Ended up using the blades of a long handled tree loper (trimmer) each blade on each side of shaft and using wood blocks as a fulcrum levered it off, after days of the PB Blaster treatment. Nothing like using the tool for what it was designed for. LOL

I like your way of thinking. I'm actually more worried about not damaging the steering mechanism or the mahogany panel it's mounted to, more than the wheel. It's butt-ugly.

Got that pesky wheel off today. It got ugly but it ended well. I cut a lot of the plastic off with a Dremel, then used my bench grinder on my 2 hook puller to get some clearance between the puller hooks and the plastic housing between wheel and dash panel. The wheel finally came off, although it fought valiantly to the bitter end. For now, I installed (loosely) the old wheel off my beloved 86 Galaxie that fell victim to a hard frost two winters ago. It's a big improvement. I have my eye on a nice 13.5" destroyer wheel. Maybe an early Christmas this year...? Here's the Galaxie wheel, doesn't look too bad.

Before even reading your post the destroyer wheel came to mind. I think it would be a good choice.
Cal

I think that's going to be my choice. Uline makes a nice wheel and being a destroyer type, there's no problem about centering it like with a 3 spoke. Heck, it's only money. Started another thread with a couple other questions about Teleflex steering.

Oh, and for anyone who runs across this thread down the road, I found it helpful to center punch and drill a pilot hole in the steering shaft, so my puller would stay centered when I tightened it down. The stock shaft was flat on the end but soft enough to drill a shallow pilot easily.

When I was looking for a wheel, I saw a stainless 'destroyer' wheel on ebay. Starting bid was $5.00. I knew it would go for more than I had, so I just marked it to watch. I kind of forgot about it, took a long weekend for a vacation. When I came back it had sold for $28 with $15 shipping. Look there and keep in touch every day monitoring it, somethings just slip through the cracks when the bid time is up.

Sometimes getting an item is easy if you look around holidays and search for items ending on a Holiday. I've picked up some awesome buys because everyone else was busy. Sounds stupid but it works. I picked up a brand new shrink wrapped in the original packaging Bosch 1 1/4 inch Hammer drill for $125 once ending on Labor-day. It listed at that time for about $550. I still have that thing and I'm using it tomorrow to drill some holes. Keep in mind I used it for my Exterminating business for years and I've drilled hundreds of thousands of holes with it and never had a issue with it.