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MG MGB Technical - wheel type wishes

I have and love the old whitworth spline/knock on hubs.
So, of course I have wire wheels too. I paint them gloss black as was often done in the 30's.
They virtually dissappear over 15 mph and look amazing with the disks and drums showing silver. The car 'floats' visually.

Enough of that. The wires, of course aren't quite concentric, an endemic issue and there is a wheel patter that comes & goes at cruise speed. I'm sick of it. So is the steering rack

I want to get a set of wheel center hubs like on the Moto-Lita alloys and have them applied to a nice clean/plain set of steel centers and rims.

Wires for show and steel for real driving, both K/O's, a'la mga twin cam.

The California supplier of Moto-Lita offered to sell me a set of these hubs for about 10% less than complete wheels. How *Xfbbl%^# generous!!

Can anyone suggest how I can get these centers without buying ($$$) the rest of the wheels?

My car is a '67 GT, jet black and with nearly 500,000 miles behind it (eng. re-do number three is underway now)

I will probably put the Moss, Roots blower on it.
Another homage to the 30's aethsetic.
on it.

Thanks, Stewart.

stewart caskie

Errata.........For Moto-Lita alloys, I meant Minilites.

Too early in the morning I suppose :)
stewart

Your wheels have lasted 38 years. Why not refurbish the front suspension and steering and install a new set of wires? Should be good for another 38 years!
Steve Simmons

Steve, I have more up my sleeve. I'm keeping the wires for daily and struttin', but........I like to ramble long miles at a zoomy pace.

If I nail these wheel centers, I'm building up a set of 15" X whatever fits the wheel arches and is modern rubber. Nevada beckons, zoooooooooooooom!

They'll be black too.

Do you know anyone with MGA twin-cam steels?

They'd be pefect.

Stewart
Stewart

If you actually find a set of twin cam wheels, you will pay a LOT of money for them, and you would then have to cut them up to put on wider rims. Not worth it, and a shame to ruin such rare wheels! Although I did hear someone was making repros of them. You might want to post in the MGA section to see if anyone has further information.
Steve Simmons

Twincam wheels are peg drive, not spline drive, totally different beast. You'd need Twincam axles and front hubs - then there's the totally unique brakes---
FRM
FR Millmore

I didn't realize twin cams used a different hub than other MGAs. I thought all MGAs and MGBs used the same spline!
Steve Simmons

The twin-cam doesn't use a spline, it has three posts, or pegs as FRM said it, that fit into corresponding holes in the wheels, with a threaded spinner to hold the wheel tight against the hub.

Paul K

Ok, That precludes twin-cam repro wheels.
Thanks for that gem Paul.

I e-mailed Rubery/Owen in Pom de Terre and asked if they were the source of the desired wheel hubs. They had or maybe still have the original tooling and plant.

I don't expect an answer, but you never know. England is better ground for nuts like me to rummage. Now that I think of it, India is the source of new Dunlop wires......worth a Google or two.

New tack. Does anyone have a baffed out set of Minilights to let go of?

Stewart
stewart

Pretty close--there're 4 pegs per wheel on the Twin Cam. Same wheels as a Jag D-type so yes, we're talking very rare and mucho bucks but when they ere not so rare, the racers would cut them up for wider rims. They're out there but are made of solid unobtainium--very rare metal who's negative effects can only be overcome with high levels of gold plated platinum.
Paul Hanley

Stewart, Going back to your original idea of getting the knock on centres I'm not sure they would fit anything other than specially made/machined wheels. Not had them but they appear to bolt to the outside of those minilite replicas with 8 bolts and that may be difficult on anything else. Even if they could be made to fit it could be a right game getting the correct offset as most steels are offset the wrong way.

The likes of MGOC do 5 1/2" x 15" 72 spokes for MGB which allows 185/65 tyres for correct circum or new standard size is easy.

Last thought is whether your problem might be balance. Very few places can do them properly on a machine but doing them statically completely fixed mine. Like yours they were pattering on and off at a steady 70. It turned out to be both fronts badly (100g!) out of balance. As they rotated they were summing or cancelling their out of balance effect across the rack as they changed rotational alignment with each other.

Rich

Rich,

Your diagnosis of the wheel patter is the same as mine.

I even have a set of spindle cones for use on balancing rigs. The strobe method that spins the wheel on the car is decently better.

How do you balance wheels statically?

Neither of my methods are perfect and there is a small radial and Z axis run-out present as well.

There are a number of wheel makers here where you can
spec your own needs for hole centers and the offset is
achieved by the dishing of the round plate and the point at which it connects to the spun rim.

It won't be cheap or too expensive,(less than new wires) but I will have 'on spec' wheels that have that certain 'look of purpose' to them.

Does anyone know the relative 'truth' of Dayton (USA) wheels and replacement Dunlops made new these days?

MGC wheels are a good alternative.

Thanks for your posting,
Stewart
Stewart

Stewart, if you're modifying steel wheels why don't you consider using the hubs from an old set of wires welded into the center of a steel wheel using suitable reinforcement. While I'm not keen on running modified wheels on a street car for safety concerns, if the welding is done by a competent welder and crack checked it should be relatively safe.
Bill Young

Seems to me that it would be easier to convert to bolt-on hubs and then you could use whatever steel or alloy wheels you wanted and put bolt-on wires on the car if you wanted them.

If you are dead set on having knock-off wires, you could always use a set of Triumph bolt-on wire wheels adaptors, although you'd probably have to do a bit of machine work on your MG steel wheel hubs to make them fit.

Here is what widened Dunlop knock-off wheels look like, but anyone using such things on a lowly MGB would be in for a lot of flak from purists and would probably have spent as much on wheels as his car was worth (just kidding):

http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/i/non-rhodo/portland.jpg
Bill Spohn

Stewart, My balancer is an old hub suspended on ball races on axle stands.
The centre of the hub has a solid piece turned to fit tightly with a 1/2" axle through the centre which is supported by a couple of shielded bearings.
Then just counterbalanced the heaviest point with stick-ons on the rim centre behind the spokes in the same manner as balancing motorcycle wheels. These are fairly narrow wheels so dynamic balancing is not such an issue compared with moderns.
Easily shows 5g difference. 3 wheels had well over 100g weights on them when I started. None had more than 50g after so the previous balancing was worse than nothing!
Did the fronts first which fixed the steering shake then found another improvement after doing the rears which must have been shaking the whole car.
I've heard there's a natural resonance with the standard size tyre around 70 which is easily excited by the road surface and that almost all wheels will shake from time to time on some surfaces around that speed btw. Maybe others know more. I also found an all round improvement going up 3psi on standard pressures but now we're into different areas.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard.maile/MGB/balancer.jpg

Rich

You could look here for jag 'Dunlop' type wheels....
http://www.realmengineering.com/wheels.html

I had the bolt on ones on an MGC and they worked just fine.....(5 lug of course) but they say they can drill to any PCD or you have the splined option....not cheap but very good.....

FWIW.


Chris Cooper

I have the KO alloys on my 67 GT. Truth be told, the centres in these things are VERY heavy. My thoughts are the same as bills; use the hubs fron a wire wheel and graft them into a bolt on wheel. Not a trivial undertaking but do-able.

Pete
Pete

Bill & Pete,

The welding of a wheel center to a round plate is daunting because the large turn over on the wheel center that holds the spoke ends is also the stiffener for the large conical face that engages with the conical part of the axle hubs and in my opinion as critical to the 'lock' as the splines themselves.

I drew up a section and the zone of weld does not look promising if a professional job is the goal. (It is.)

Rich, Thankyou for the picture/description. Elegantly simple and simply elegant.

Chris, this seems like a good link. I'm a designer for a living so I expect to have to invent to some degree.

I have in mind a far less complicated solution than the D-type wheel. What I have in mind is nothing more than a slightly dished 3/16 steel plate, about 13.5" o/d with large,round vent holes that will bolt or weld to a normal well based rim so that the correct offset is achieved.

To do this I need a set of Rudge pattern 42mm wheel centers that can be bolted/rivited/welded to this dished disc, securely.

The end result will be a strong, light and handsome wheel that is a true "Knock-off" and an original at the same time.

It should be a worthy alternative to Minilites, aethsetically good on the car and a lot more affordable than what we have now.

Sounds like a saleable product doesn't it?
Stewart

Stewart, I was thinking about the issue while looking at my wires. If you could make a tube that would just slip over the front spoke area and weld flush with the rear spoke face, the wheel center that you describe would then weld to this tube. This design would allow fairly easy machining for trueness before the wheel center was welded to the hub and allow quite a bit of leeway for offset adjustment. As far as a saleable item, the cost would have to be inline with wires as replacement of the splines would eventually be required.
Bill Young

Bill,

Your idea is most welcome. I wish you could post me some kind of drawing that shows your idea.

One of the big concerns for me is to find a real, splined wheel center for non-wire wheels. The Dunlop disk wheels for the 'D' type Jags look just right. I've learned that they were peg driven instead of splines.

Now the current 'D' type replicas use splined hubs 52mm
and I found that 42mm hubs are also available and they are being applied to replica 'Dunlop' wheels for replica cars.

One set could be welded up, but for production/safety reasons, rivets or fitted studs/bolts should be the means of hubbing the disk of the wheel.

Re: splines, please take a peek at my posting to the thread "wire wheel convertion" of this site. (it's the last on the string)
If you follow that advice, wear ceases to be a factor.
There are 70 year old wheels that will back me up on many 'Vintage' cars in Britain.
All the 'run-over-worn-out splines' hubs I've seen were filthy with crud,rust and had mashed knock-off ears.

I've been driving wire wheeled cars daily since the sixties. I've bought cars with unuseable/unmaintained hub splines and fixed that issue...Pronto.
Clean,lubed cones and splines virtually last forever.

Stewart
Stewart

Looks like twin-cam style wheels on this one also...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6472&item=4557453828&rd=1
Steve Simmons

This thread was discussed between 11/06/2005 and 21/06/2005

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