The 'E' Type Forum

mmmmm, I'm not so sure just now.

I bought a BMW 3 series jack to use on travels because it is smaller, fits in the spare wheel well and is easy to use. So I had to try it out before going to the Spa Classic races next weekend.

It lifted the car easily and I just happened to lean on the rear wheel and it turned a little with a clunk - handbrake on. That's odd. Looked underneath at the drive shaft as I rocked the wheel and this did not move 1 iota. What I failed to do was see if it was true rotation or rocking on the splines or was there rotation between the wheel and the spinner. So I called my restorer to be advised that sometimes the cone inside the wheel hub does not sit properly on the cone on the splined hub and it needs tightening.

The spinner was tight as far as I know, the wheels not been off since I took the car - some 3000 miles previous.

So I took the wheel off (spinner tight) for a look see and after cleaning found this:
Clearly the cones have not mated and have chafed. The spinner has not self tightened in those miles to mate the cones properly. Is this a question of not fitting wheel and tightening the spinner properly??

Or is it maybe one of those repro spinners which is not machined properly and won't tighten adequately?

Well, having gone back and looked here

http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php? ... 4&p=103703

seems I have the repro spinner which is not tightening properly

Yes, those are the crap spinners from Orson Engineering, wrong is so many ways it beggar's belief. Suggest you find a reasonably good set of originals and have them de-chromed, dressed, re-engraved (if necessary) and re-chromed. Incidentally the Rudge Whitworth spinners are not self-tightening (that was a marketing ploy in the 1920's) but rather self-locking. Once they are tightened they should stay there and not come loose. That premise of course assumes the hubs, wheels and spinners are made to original specifications!

Julian was considering having Albion Brockhurst remake the originals but is concerned about the initial tooling outlay, the fact they will retail at twice the price of the crap ones and there is the concern over the intellectual property of the Jaguar logo.

"The spinner has not self tightened in those miles to mate the cones properly. Is this a question of not fitting wheel and tightening the spinner properly??"

I'd say that the self-tightening - good, bad or indifferent - has been all that's kept your wheels from falling off.

Are you certain it's not the hub cones or wheel cones? Did you clean much grease off for the photos or assemble everything fairly dry? The parts appear not to have been mated very well and no spinner is going to make up for that situation, if it turns out that way.

What does the corresponding surface on the hub look like? Is there noticeable wear on the splines on wheel and the hub? The wheel is easy to check as the inner portions of the splines don’t contact the hub splines when the wheel’s fitted, so there’s always an unworn reference.

Are those spinners correct for those wheels? .....Steve

Those spinners are incorrect for any wheels

What i ment was can you use S1 type spinners with Dunlop alloys?..it looks wrong anyway

They are repro castings Steve, apparently bolted to standard 52 mm Rudge-Whitworth hubs that would use normal dimension spinners of any style.

The real McCoy LWE used 42 mm peg drives like the D but did actually have a slightly different rear mounting face on the LWE spinners, as it happens. That's not an issue here though as these are 52 mm hubs.

Thanks for all your responses.

I'm going back to the restorer's today to get this fixed before going to Spa.

Yes, there was quite a bit of dry grease on the cone which I cleaned off with WD40. The hub cone is just the same.

After I first saw David's comparison of the repro spinners against originals, I remember checking the one on the opposite corner and being satisfied it was OK. They will all get checked out today.

Hi Jerry....any answer on this yet....Steve

Update given here.... http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14292