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hard wheel clunking when braking

Van Bagley

Donation Time
When braking one of the wheels (wire) will clunk. Sometimes the right rear or one of the front wheels.
My suspicion is that the splines on the wheels are either worn or the hubs are worn and or both.
I often pull the wheel off, and retighten it. Before I spend big bucks on hubs and wheels how can I verify that this is truly the problem?
 

bernd_st

Bronze Level Sponsor
A clunk during braking is a clear indicator for worn splines. The hubs will wear too. Both will need to be replaced no matter how hard you tighten the hub nuts. Ask me how I know
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. It got so bad on my SV that during very hard braking the front wheels jumped over one tooth. With regard to safety I decided to dump the whole mess and go for steel wheel/hubs which give completely trouble free service since many years...
 

Van Bagley

Donation Time
I was afraid of this. It appears that a set of new wires is about $1500 for 4 and about $250 per corner for splines.
 

alpine_64

Donation Time
Do MGA wheels work?
Not sure about mga.. They are 15" ..

13" sprite/ midget work but have a deeper offset rim to the outside... Looks more sporty but will poke the wheels out a bit more. The hubs are also flatter so make sure they dont foul your calipers.

MGB 14" will also work .. But again check clearance on the brakes just incase

MGB
 

bernd_st

Bronze Level Sponsor
New wire wheels can be easily found/ replaced but finding new/unworn hubs is a different story. Bolt on replacements should be available but then you need to exchange the hubs on the rear too...
 

mikephillips

Donation Time
Always, always replace wheels and splined hubs as pairs as the splines in both wear as pairs. So a new wheel on a used hub or a new hub with a used wheel will wear much faster since the pressure points in the splines will not be even. Splines start out as equilateral triangle shapes with the tops squared off, when viewed from the end. As they wear the hub splines slowly compress and bend. The rears usually are more noticeable since the drivetrain pushes them against the wheel splines when moving. The fronts also wear but the main pressure on them tends to be braking rather than pushing/pulling the car.
So over time they wear together with the bending of the hub and wheel more or less matching each other. Rotating wheels, unless done often at low mileages between swaps, I also discourage since the wear patterns won't match and can cause accelerated wear.

I've kept a selection of worn out hubs to illustrate what can happen, including one where an emergency stop folded them flat.
 

bernd_st

Bronze Level Sponsor
Described very nicely. The looks of wire wheels are nice but once they are worn it gets a rather expensive exercise to replace them. My worn rears didn't come off easily so I cut them off using an angle grinder. It worked at the end but took me hours. Several spokes on the wire wheels were loose and had popped off earlier. Replacement, respectively switchover to normal 4 stud hubs/alloy wheels was one of my best decisions ever. The car felt so sturdy and stable afterwards. No comparison...
 

Limey

Donation Time
Wires look much better than steels. Most of us drive less than 5k a year so long life is a dead issue with either wheel type. Dead end.
 

Van Bagley

Donation Time
Moss Motors sells wire wheels that will fit ( MG Midget/Sprite) at a reasonable cost. Now I'm trying to find replacement spines. Moss also sells splines but I'm doubtful that they will match up to my hubs. I have contacted a few suppliers I found ebay but no response. Not big on sending $$$ to a company that won't answer a simple question.
Any suggestions?
 

Gordon Holsinger

Diamond Level Sponsor
Moss Motors sells wire wheels that will fit ( MG Midget/Sprite) at a reasonable cost. Now I'm trying to find replacement spines. Moss also sells splines but I'm doubtful that they will match up to my hubs. I have contacted a few suppliers I found ebay but no response. Not big on sending $$$ to a company that won't answer a simple question.
Any suggestions?
Motor wheel service in U.K. has a distributor in the us
 

Tim R

Silver Level Sponsor
Gordon mentions MWS above. This company bought the original equipment from Dunlop in the 1980s. To avoid the E.U. chroming rules they make their wire wheels in India. The quality is first class. I have recently purchased a complete set of 5 new (14") wire wheels and hubs and new spinners. The cost was around £2,400 for everything. Their wire wheels are now tubeless which offers a lot more tyre choices. Moss just re-sell MWS wheels.
One thing to remember with wires is never to rotate the wheels. It is often thought to be good practice to swap front right and rear left wheel occasionally. This is true on steel wheels but you should always leave a wire wheel on the hub that it usually lives on. If you get a puncture, use the spare and then put the repaired wheel back where it was. This minimises spline wear.
I have the original Dunlop wire wheel instructions which are very clear that the spinners must be tightened with the wheel elevated above the ground. They must be hammered tight but that doesn't mean overtightened. Sometimes I have seen people banging and banging the spinners with hammers. It is not necessary, the spinning of the wheel is tightening it all the time.
 

Attachments

  • Dunlop advice for wire wheels.pdf
    118.6 KB · Views: 9

Tim R

Silver Level Sponsor
Further to the above there are several better ways to tighten the spinners now rather than just hitting them with a heavy hammer! Various devices are manufactured and featured on YouTube that allow you to tighten the spinner without hitting it directly.
 

Gordon Holsinger

Diamond Level Sponsor
Gordon mentions MWS above. This company bought the original equipment from Dunlop in the 1980s. To avoid the E.U. chroming rules they make their wire wheels in India. The quality is first class. I have recently purchased a complete set of 5 new (14") wire wheels and hubs and new spinners. The cost was around £2,400 for everything. Their wire wheels are now tubeless which offers a lot more tyre choices. Moss just re-sell MWS wheels.
One thing to remember with wires is never to rotate the wheels. It is often thought to be good practice to swap front right and rear left wheel occasionally. This is true on steel wheels but you should always leave a wire wheel on the hub that it usually lives on. If you get a puncture, use the spare and then put the repaired wheel back where it was. This minimises spline wear.
I have the original Dunlop wire wheel instructions which are very clear that the spinners must be tightened with the wheel elevated above the ground. They must be hammered tight but that doesn't mean overtightened. Sometimes I have seen people banging and banging the spinners with hammers. It is not necessary, the spinning of the wheel is tightening it all the time.
I am replacing all of my hubs and wheels!
 

Van Bagley

Donation Time
I ended up buying the wheels from Victoria British. They are the same wheel that Moss sells but for $70 less per wheel.
Tim,
Which 14inch wheel did you purchase?
 
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