Spinners not tightening.

[rswaffie]

I’ve been reading the other posts on this subject as I have had a perplexing problem with refurbed AB spinners. I had a set of AB that came fitted with my 3.8. Last year I put a new set of MWS curly chromes on it but kept the original AB spinners. No probs. I also got a second set of AB spinners from eBay and had them refurbed and rechromed by Derby plating. I took the wheels of a few weeks ago to give them a clean and put on the refurbed spinners. They all seemed to go on ok but after 30 or so miles of driving, I started to notice a sort of thrumming noise like a chinook helicopter at certain speeds. It also occurred at low speeds. When checking the wheels, I could feel some slop on all wheels when gripping at 12 and 6 o’clock, so held them flat with my feet and gave them a few more whacks until tight. However, after more driving - same problem. I replaced them all with the original AB spinners and problem seems to have gone away.
Could the rechroming have altered the specs of the spinners causing all or some of them to not seat or not stay seated correctly?

[christopher storey]

Is this the newly rebuilt car ? If so, check to see that the hubs have not been put on the wrong side(s) because if they have the spinners will loosen with use ! This is by no means an unkown occurrence even with the professionals. The left hand wheels have a right hand thread to tighten, and the right hand wheels a left hand thread to tighten

[mgcjag]

Hi Richard.....i cannot see that rechroming could alter the spinners....however i assume you never tried them prior to chroming.........are you sure they were a set of originals...weight etc..........is the depth of thread the same on the two set or are the "new" ones bottoming out...so no actually fully tightening.....as Christopher said above a friend did a full rebuild.....when it was finnished i noticed straight away that his hubs were on the wrong sides.....Steve

[abowie]

Is this the newly rebuilt car ? If so, check to see that the hubs have not been put on the wrong side(s)

What he said.

You can quickly check by ensuring that the spinner undoes in the clockwise direction on the driver's side of the car (RHD car).

Otherwise, for whatever reason, you'd have to assume that your new spinners aren't locking down.

[rswaffie]

Thanks chaps. By way of an update...
The hubs are in the correct sides - I nearly made that mistake when rebuilding it!
I have taken another look at the refurbed spinners - they weigh 952,983,918,963 grams which seems ok?
They all have the 1466 LH AB or 1467 RH AB markings on the inner face. However, I noticed something odd about one of the LH spinners. As you can hopefully see in the pictures, one has the threads finishing with a gap before the inner face, as do the other two RH spinners. The other LH one seems to have the thread going all the way to the face?
A gap of about 4mm before the face:



No gap:

[Heuer]

Looks like you got some factory rejects as the thread should go all the way down and that is likely the problem. Unfortunately they are scrap

[rswaffie]

Bummer. I’ve got another set somewhere, I’ll have a look at those. Should have checked before getting them done

[Gfhug]

Ok, silly question, could the ends of the hubs have a few mm shaved off? Allowing the refurbed spinners to be used but without compromising strength, safety, etc?

Prepared to be shot down in flames if deserved.

Geoff

[rswaffie]

I saw that mentioned on another thread. I’d rather have the correct spinners than mess with the hubs.

[rswaffie]

A further update - I had a look at 5 other spinners I had in the loft, all of which are ostensibly the correct AB pressings. 2 had threads all the way to the inner face, 1 had the thread finishing about 2mm from the face and the other 2 had a similar 4-5mm gap between thread and face.
It will be interesting to see what the current set are like that came with the car.

[abowie]

Ok, silly question, could the ends of the hubs have a few mm shaved off?

Or you could machine the inside of the spinner.

Make a mandrel so you can set it up square in a 4 jaw chuck, bore out the bottom of the thread so that it can tighten down.

That should work and should be safe given that you're only going to need to take out a small amount of material.

[PeterCrespin]

Looks like you got some factory rejects ....Unfortunately they are scrap

I highly doubt it. Some basic measurements and test fitting would be in order. I can’t believe ‘factory rejects’ of a safety-critical item - however defined - would escape the scrap bin other than with cosmetic blemishes. The spinners should never tighten fully onto the hub any more than acorn nuts do on head studs. There should always be sufficient unused female thread to avoid binding. Provided there is such a margin, the amount of same is moot.

A depth caliper would be my first checking tool.

[Heuer]

Measurements of an original AB spinner:

Height - 38mm (1.5")
Diameter - 101.6mm (4")
Outer wall thickness - 6.5mm (1/4")
Inner wall thickness - 5.4mm (7/32")
Depth from top of wall to bottom of casting - 31.6mm (1 1/4")
Weight - 885gms (31oz)

[JerryL770]

I had this problem wondering whether my repro spinners were bottoming out on the hub thread.

Easy to check.

Tighten the spinner onto a wheel. Note its position and undo it keeping the wheel stationary. Count the turns till it comes off. Remove the wheel and refit the spinner. If it goes on a turn or 2 more before it bottoms on the thread, this is not the problem with wheel fitted.