The 'E' Type Forum

I know that the issue has already been addressed.
There are not many professionals around to work on wire wheels, and the few that do it charge not far from the cost of new wire wheels sold by the usuals.

However, such a work may be justified for valuable wheels such as Borranis.

I am looking for shops that could do that, others than the Borrani factory.
Actually, Borrani would do not only the truing of wheels but a complete restoration because they do not want to be liable for possibly defective wheels coming out from their factory.
So that the total cost is staggering, I just got a quote from them at 995 Euros + VAT per wheel!

Turrino would do a similar restoration for less but not by far.
And fortunately they would also consider doing only limited work such as replacing spokes and truing the wheel without undergoing e.g. a complete poslishing of the rim and/or rechroming of the hub.

But I have not found a shop that would only do truing of the wheel and possibly replacing the few worn spokes/nipples.
That seems to be now a disappearing activity.
If somebody knows such a shop, in UK or even better in the EU (to avoid custom issues in my case), I would appreciate having the info.

I think that what you need is a good motorcycle wheel specialist . Certainly that would be my first port of call. That having been said, this is a job that you can do yourself with a little bit of practice, and the workshop manual gives explicit instructions at section M6 to M8 . The bit of special kit needed is a truing stand , but it should be possible to make one with an old hub ( or even an existing one with a disc )

Thank you Christopher.
I have alredy identified a few motorcycle shops (not many to do that job either) and that is my backup.

I have also considered doing it myself after having read the workshop manual and other experiences and looked at videos.
To go further, I have already bought appropriate wrenches and a dial gauge with its support and I thought of doing it myself on one of the front hubs of my car (not going to build up or buy a special bench).

But it however seems to be a non trivial exercise requiring a lot of experience to do it right...

Hi Serge...iv heard good reports of this company ....but no personal experiance...Steve https://www.tudorwheels.co.uk/wheel-services

https://turrinowheels.com/

These guys did a great job on my Healey 3000 wires - trued, new spokes and balanced.
However, they are in Northamptonshire and I believe you are in Belgium?

Yes, in Brussels.
I know Turrino works very well, thank you Richard. But UK is not the easiest for me.
And thanks also, Steve

Eeek! dont try fettling wheels yourselves.

Eeek! dont use motorbike wheel builders. motorbike wheels dont have to cope with side forces.

In the UK we use Richard Bros in Wales to do our Bespoke Wheel building. But Turrino and MWS are also good wheel builders. I beleive Tudor wheels are pretty good.

We sell Borrani. they arent cheap but they are ace. I have them on a Lotus Elite.



Phwarr!

However the thing i would like to say about wire wheels is always fit inner tubes.

Check out this web page and i suggest watching the film

https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/classi ... tubes.html

I know there are wheels that are called tubeless wire wheels and structurally they are fine, but just fit inner tubes. that is the way they are supposed to work. we have found ourselves in the middle of too many failures of these wheels to trust them.

No tyre less than 70 profile should be fitted to a wire wheel

But when it comes to straightening and truing up wheels on an e-type in most cases i would suggest jut buy new wheels. you are in a very fortunate position in that because it is a popular wheels they are cheap as chips. those MWS wheels are great, but do fit an inner tube.

Every so often I check my wheels for trueness. I don’t have any special equipment, no jigs or gauges. I use the car itself.

After adjusting a front wheel bearing to remove all play (before backing off to insert the split pin) I remove the brake pads, to allow the wheel to move freely, and remount the wheel.

I then tape a pointer (I use a sharpy pen) to a something heavy like a spare battery and place it so the tip of the pointer almost touches the wheel rim.

Getting any out of trueness out of the rim is a specialist job which involves checking not just for side to side trueness, but also out of roundness. This requires the tyre to be removed. I won’t advise anyone to adjust their wheels for trueness themselves. However, by checking, someone can determine if a wheel is not running true.

One other thing, if a wheel is out of true including out of roundness, it may be mistaken for an out of balance wheel.

See Wanted section, please, am hoping to build a jig specifically for the E Type wheels so am looking for a stub axle and a hub, more or less any condition would do.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21765

I have a spoked wheel builder in France but he doesn’t have a jig suitable for our wheels, and from experience I intend to make something that truly reproduces how the wheels are held and function, having no confidence in the repeatability of wheel location unless the true cones are at work, and properly tight.

Anyone with some usable junk will find their parts going to the Med in a suitcase after Christmas, no export licence required ?

This is the idea.

Meant to say, obviously happy to pay.

The going rate would appear to be about £100, or half the £200 that new bits would cost.

A very good initiative in any case.
Wish you succeed so that you can report. Pity you are so far in the south ...

Bought axle/hub/nut/washer/usable bearings from Ken Jenkins, £130 inc VAT and shipping.



35mm steel tubing with a bore that's a perfect match to the axle, and forms the back lip for the inner bearing, a slug welded where the upright-nut would be, and two locating welds through the flank.





Mounting jig now built, and wheels are with the wheel-builder.

Rory, have you built that to give to the wheel builder to let him correctly build the wheels, or are you using it yourself to check and possibly adjust the wheels he has built? Just trying to appreciate how/where the jig will be used.

Regards, Geoff

Getting spoke tensions checked and wheels tweaked to run as true as possible, French wheel-builder does other cars but had no mandrel for Jaguars.

The wheels still look brand new after 35 years (MWS - India) but believe there may be room for improvement.

Have also now got Jaguar-specific wheel-balancing-machine cones in aluminium, rather than nylon, as cranking the eared-nut up hard to truly centre the wheel is - in my experience - important, and you can’t do that with the Smoothride nylon ones without splitting the outer.

Realised I had never put up the shots of the jig in use on the wheel-builder's pulpit.









The original Dunlop accepted "true" rim tolerance was - according to MWS - 1.50mm lateral and 1.50mm circular.

This is measured at the "roots" where the beads seat, diagram courtesy of MWS.



I had my wheels done in Dijon by people who are more used to bikes than cars, and where the norm is more like 0.50mm run-out.

Over the years I had always fed a mixture of oil and WD40 into the nipples, with a quill, as part of regular maintenance, and when they came to loosen all the spokes off, before re-tensioning them all, only 2 of Lord-knows how many there are gave them any difficulty, and had to be replaced.

They now run truer than they ever have before, and because of this they also require fewer weights to balance them.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21905

Here is another string worth reading, with more details about the special balancing cones that are necessary for Rudge-Whitworth hubs.