With apologies to those who still espouse the use of the Thor type copper
and rawhide hammer. These were certainly supplied in tool kits for cars with
wire wheels and mostly people used the copper face (!) instead of the
rawhide one for loosening/tightening the centre-locks. Inevitably, this
wreaked havoc on the eared spinners until the octagonal ones came into use.
I was interested to see the VTR observation that splined wheel centres can
splay. This suggests only one thing to my mind and that's over-tightening.
Procedure I always used was as follows:
- Ensure the chamfer on the spinner has a light smear of grease or
copper-slip as it recessess into the hub. It helps protect the chrome and
partly avoids absolute metal to metal contact.
- Fit the spinner and tighten as much as possible by hand. In these early
stages, jiggle the wheel to ensure it's sitting correctly on the splines.
- Use a rubber faced hammer to gently tap the spinner ever tighter, rotating
the wheel by 180 deg with each gentle blow.
- When it's clear the spinner is just about tight, two further smart blows
on each spinner ear will suffice.
- Carefully remove any oozes of grease with a rag.
- With the front wheels firmly locked in place and as a preventative
maintenance check, hold wheel at six and twelve o'clock and rock vertically
to check for wear in bearing or king-pin
For the record, I always used a thick molybdenum grease on the splines of
hub and wheel but I guess ordinary heavy grease is just as good.
Jonmac
Now back to disc wheels and those ghastly, rattling pseudo wheel trims!
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.547 / Virus Database: 340 - Release Date: 02/12/03
|