I say "we" because it took two of us again. I held the wheel while David wielded the lock ring wrench.
Yep, not the drift punch that all the manuals call for. The drift punch and earlier substitutes weren't transfering enough force to even turn the wheel, and it was almost impossible to get it into the groove without catching the head of the nearest spoke. The wrench allowed us to position the "push points" more precisely and not bounce them around with hammer blows. Actually, the ideal tool would have been a ring with teeth to fit into those grooves and a handle to smack with the hammer, possibly with a cup to screw onto the axle to hold it in place -- like the thing I think of as a "tin can tool" that holds the wrench in place on the bottom bracket, but with a slightly different shape. And maybe another clamp-y tool to keep the wheel from turning. Toolsmithing turned out to be unnecessary (and a good thing, too, since I have neither the tools nor the skill), since I had the use of a large man with strong hands and the right angle for the vise (it's a tad high for me).
And now I get retainer bearings. Except the official parts list says it's a 7 X 1/4" and the one I took out had eight bearings in it. So more research there: did the part change or did someone substitute what s/he had on hand as close enough?
But at least now I can take the hub with me to shop for an index chain without toting the whole wheel all over town.
Oh, and the guy at Deschutes (really should learn their names better, bad me) tells me that what I have is definitely a plain AW hub, not the AW Mark II that I thought it might be. The two little lines stamped on the hub shell are probably an eleven and mean it was made in November of 1964, or, when I was about a year and a half old.
So, here's what I have so far:
