MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGA - Wire wheel woes

I have been spring cleaning my chrome plated wire wheels, and have found four broken spokes. Each wheel is also starting to rust, as well as several spokes. I have replaced some spokes in the past.
I have always preferred the steel wheels, but the wires came with the car.
I now want to weigh up the cost of a set of new wheels vs. converting to steel wheels. What are you thoughts
Nigel Munford

Nigel. I have converted all of my cars, over the years, to disc type wheels. My worst case of "wire wheel panic" was when driving my current MGA down the interstate highways just after I purchased it. During the trip several of the spokes on the right, rear wheel broke and the car began to behave in a erratic manner. Pulling over to the side of the highway, I noticed the broken spokes. Upon jacking the car up, I was able to hold the tire and move the wheel several inches inwards and outwards. I have never had such potentially lethal problems with disc wheels. For me, wire wheels only belong on a show car that is trailered to and from car shows. Driving cars get disc wheels with the Minilite replica being my current favorite.

Les
Les Bengtson

I am a fan of the disc wheels, and have always been able to get spares from people who have converted to wires. There are usually a set or two kicking around ebay. But the disc wheels do break too if you drive really hard, I have had a few crack over the years, but they are a lot more robust than the wire wheels, and a lot easier to maintain.

Your problem will be finding a pair of standard front hubs, and buying a pair of steel wheel rear half shafts. If your car is has front disc brakes, you may also need a different steering arm to go with the new hubs.. Fortunately for you colinp has a full set of all the front stuff on ebay right now, and he is a very amenable chap so make him an offer! He may well have the half shafts you need too. I can donate you a set of hubcaps for the price of the postage.
Dominic Clancy

Thanks Dominic, I'll bear that in mind.
Nigel Munford

I seem to recall that the chroming process can make the spokes brittle hence the breakages. The only broken spokes I have experienced were on chromed wires.

Would a better option be to look out for a set of 60 or 72 spoke wheels in a painted finish which should be less likely to break.
John Bray

I think the standard style disc wheels look great on an MGA, especially on the coupes. And you instantly eliminate issues with spline drive maintenance and wear, spoke issues and of course the tedium of cleaning wire wheels.

All the Australian assembled MGAs however were fitted with wire wheels, so the option of changing to disc wheels here is more difficult, with few conversion bits lying around.
My own MGA came fitted with Dunlop chrome wire wheels. They have a nasty habit of snapping spokes. Seven broken spokes in six years. Always the short ones.
I've gotten pretty adept at replacing the spokes, (using stainless steel spokes), and judging the tension by tapping the adjacent spokes with a screw driver, and tightening the new spoke till the pitch of the "ring" when tapped matches the ring obtained by tapping the other spokes!
T Aczel

Here you go guy's

Hydrogen embrittlement can occur during various manufacturing operations or operational use - anywhere that the metal comes into contact with atomic or molecular hydrogen. Processes that can lead to this include cathodic protection, phosphating, pickling, and electroplating.

It will probably never happen but I would like to have a 5 speed and Racemettle spline drive wheels to replace my disc's
gary starr

Nigel,
I have always preferred the look of disc wheels on the MGA, probably because my first MGA (a coupe) had them fitted.

The roadster I have now came with Racemettle Alloy wheels which look almost identical to the original Dunlop centre-lock wheels fitted to the deluxe and the twincam. My wheels are bolt-on wheels but they have a central boss with a "knock-on" spinner fitted that makes them look like centre-lock wheels.

Racemettle do make a centre lock version of this wheel that will fit splined hubs Nigel and in theory this would be the ideal solution, but the price of them is a bit scary!

Colyn


c firth

Colyn / Nigel
So the easy solution is to find a set of deluxe / twinc wheels?
A straight replacement for wires?
David
D Brown

Don't think so. A friend of mine bought a TC rear axle and 5 wheels and paid a whopping 6000 Gbp for them recently.
Dominic Clancy

Hmm. I have just changed to wires and have hubs, drums, 10 spline halfshafts left over. Mine is a 1500 with drum brakes. I was thinking of buying Dunlop replicas from Realm. They were last on ebay at £305 each. See http://www.realmengineering.com/page6.html
Expensive but a lot less than £6000.
Shane
Shanerj

David, -- The short answer is flat out "No". The Dunlop wheels for the Twin Cam application are pin drive wheels and will not fir on splined hubs in place of wire wheels.

By coincidence, wire wheel half shafts and the pin drive half shafts are the same length and can be interchanged. So if you have a Twin Cam type rear axle with pin drive wheels, you could change the halfshafts with splined hubs to install wire wheels. I can't guarantee it, but it should in theory work the other way around as well. You should be able to install Twin Cam type halfshafts add hubs in a wire wheel rear axle to convert it to pin drive wheels.

The still leaves the issue of how to convert the front hubs. The Twin Cam (and "Deluxe) front hubs use tapered roller bearings where other MGAs use ball bearings. I think you would have to change the knuckle and steering arm and calipers and hoses and rotors along with the hub.

We know it is possible, but MG factory literature of the day said flat out it cannot be done.
Barney Gaylord

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the rear axle housings for the steel disc wheels and wire wheels are different widths. It's been a while, but if memory serves correctly, the disc wheel housing is about 1.5" wider than the wire wheel version. This means that just changing the half axles alone will result in either the axles bottoming out (wire wheel to steel wheel conversion) or in sufficient engagement of the half axle splines with the differential gears (wire wheel to disc wheel conversion) if both the axles and housing are not matched.
Steve Brandt

It occurs to me that if my friend has just rebuilt his car using TC parts to get away from wires, he must have the complete old caboodle to sell. I can ask him and report back if anyone is interested. His TC was converted to wires a long time ago and he is gradually converting everything back to original

Dominic Clancy

You are correct Steve, although the correct longer wire wheel half shafts are available to fit wire wheels to the wider axle. Shorter steel wheel shafts are not available though to use steel wheels on a narrow axle.
Neil McG

Getting axle shafts shortened and re-splined is really not that big of a deal; off-roaders have it done all the time when re-purposing heavy duty axles to fit smaller vehicles.

http://www.moserengineering.com/moser/shop-services/

http://www.currieenterprises.com/html/custom/rearendservices.htm

If mounting disc wheels to a wire wheel housing in this manner, you would likely need different offset wheels or spacers.
Del Rawlins

I bought a set of 48 spoke crome wires from Moss in the '80s and ran them for 20 years +. I had no problems at all until the chrome finally started to fail. Then 5 years ago, just for a change, went to the Moss-offered "Mini-Light Style Knock-Offs." Different look which fits my car, they have also been great and allow you to go tube-less.
Just some options.
Steve Meline
Steve Meline

Here in the states, we have a company called Dayton wire wheel company. I have the 72 spoke on my car and they "look" like chrome. The spokes are polished stainless steel and not chromed. They are also tubeless. I can them hard in corners and I don't worry about spokes breaking.

Jeff Becker
JEFF BECKER

I have been told that wire wheels need balancing. I don't mean in the normal way, with weights to avoid wheel wobble,vibration, but actually for strength.
Any views?
Nigel Munford

Nigel

They are difficult to balance on standard balancing machines without the use of special cones to match the machined angle face at the back of the hub. These are not normal stocked items by the run-of-the-mill tyre fitting shops. The MGOC here in the UK stock a set of the cones. I carry a set in the boot. Other than that the likes of Bob West has adapted a balancing machine especially for MG/Healey/Jaguar etc.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Hi Steve,
I think you are talking about 'normal' balancing, as you would a normal wheel, I'm referring to a process to balance/tune the spokes with each other, so that the stresses are equal, if that makes sense!
Nigel Munford

Barney is right about the Twin Cam stuff being totally different (yes, the wire wheel axles shafts alone are interchangeable) so that is a forget it, or take a 2nd mortgage idea.

I also like the Dayton wheels and use them in 15x6 on the Jamaican. For an MGA, the MWS wheels in painted finish should to the job just fine and are cheaper.
Bill Spohn

During my restoration I changed over a disc wheel car to wires to my constant regret. Someone before I got the car started the process by taking a hack saw to the studs to shorten them and then bolting Triumph wire hubs onto the stubs. Thinking that I had wires I bought parts accordingly and was deep in when I found out the truth. Many additional parts are required to make the change not the least of which is the rear end housing, axle shafts, hubs, hand brake cable, etc. Wires are very high maintenance compared to the discs. Hard to get tires mounted and balanced and so forth. An additional problem that I discovered the hard way was the the original style 48 spoke wires did not hold up with sticky radial tires and one of my brand new rims had all the inside spokes let go at highway speed. It was quite an adventure getting the car over to the side of the road alive. Sixty spoke rims seen to hold up better but if you have disc wheels hold on to them. They look fine and from my reading were what the designers expected would be the popular choice anyway.
Keith Lowman

besides bringing out the wheels a bit is there a problem with using the triumph bolt on hubs
Ron E

No issue with the Triumph adaptors. You have a choice - hacksaw off the tips of the studs to shorten them and prevent them hitting the wheel (which won't seat properly with the stock steel wheel studs) or do what I do and add a thin spacer under the adaptor so that the studs don't protrude and don't need shortening. You only need something like 1/4 - 3/8"

See the spacers in use at http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/i/non-rhodo/wirewheeladaptor.jpg
Bill Spohn

This thread was discussed between 05/03/2014 and 03/04/2014

MG MGA index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.