My mate came round with his 1959 Flash, complaining that the rear wheel kept developing sideways play. As is often the case on FWH's the bearing had moved in its housing because the LHT retainer had come loose. So we tightened it up and added a bit of 'bearing fit' for good measure. After only a few miles the same problem arose again. On close inspection the arrangement isn't very good. Firstly there is only one bearing in the hub, the second is in the sprocket. The bearing retainer has no locking facility and it relies on the flat contact of the face of the locking ring against the flat face of the outer race of the bearing. I decided to skim a chamfer on the edge of the locking ring so that it grips round the edge of the bearing. This is a two minute job on the lathe and provides a much better contact arrangement with the bearing. 12 months on the rear wheel still seems secure. Recently, I've been using an unrestored Super Rocket on runs with the club. A couple of weekends ago we had our 'Season Opener' then I went on holiday. On return the back tyre was flat so I removed the rear wheel and, you guessed it, noticed that the bearing retainer had come loose allowing the bearing to travel laterally in the hub. I've done the same modification to the bearing retainer and am hoping this will fix the problem again. Thinking back to the NZ rally back in 2010, I had the same problem with a Golden Flash there so I've encountered this problem three times now.
