If You Use Wire Wheels...

[tigereater]

... on your stock Sunbeam Alpine does the taper on the wire wheels and the hubs touch? My husband has removed the wheels to check the balance after running them a while. He sees evidence of contact on the hub just past the splines at the very edge of the taper, but none on the tapered surfaces as he would expect. The surface of the tapers are as tidy as when he first mounted the wheels.
Thanks,
Gina

 

[DanR]

Gina, Could you post a few PIC that would depict the area in question ?

Thanks,

 

[tigereater]

Here are the hub and wheel. The dark line is a thin track of anti-seize from the splines, where the contact appears to be made. Original factory wheels and hubs. Spines are in good shape.

 

[beamdream]

... on your stock Sunbeam Alpine does the taper on the wire wheels and the hubs touch? My husband has removed the wheels to check the balance after running them a while. He sees evidence of contact on the hub just past the splines at the very edge of the taper, but none on the tapered surfaces as he would expect. The surface of the tapers are as tidy as when he first mounted the wheels.
Thanks,
Gina

Short answer, yes.

 

[jumpinjan]

I have cleaned up the tapers in my lathe.
Jan

 

[mikephillips]

As noted, the answer is yes they touch. The taper serves basically as a stop to keep the wheel from continuing to move towards the brake drums/rotors. What this also means is that the splines do not 100% overlap, on well worn hubs you can see that the inner parts of the splines aren't worn, about 15% or so of the length as the wheel splines don't move that far back. Not a safety issue, beyond the "well worn" description, but worth noting that the less than 100% overlay is normal.

 

[Alpine 1789]

I have cleaned up the tapers in my lathe.

That is interesting, Jan. Can you tell us more about this and why you have done it?

 

[tigereater]

Thanks all. My husband is knowledgeable on all things mechanical, but was just wondering have you seen the wheel and hub look like that. The little car is a never ending source of surprises and frustration. And fun, too.

 

[jumpinjan]

why you have done it?

The tapered surface gets worn & damaged, so I clean them up in my lathe.
Jan

 

[Alpine 1789]

Thanks. I was imagining something more exotic, like moving the contact point to 'adjust' for worn splines. Sadly, no magic bullet there.

 

[mikephillips]

Yea, there really is no fix for worn splines beyond replacement. The unworn splines on the wheel are at the outer end of the wheel center and the inner end of the hub so they can't really be adjusted enough to matter since the brake drum and rotor/caliper are already very close to the wheel.