• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Re-Spoking and Truing Wire Wheels

Tinkerman

Darth Vader
Offline
Afternoon to all of you:

Getting to the point that I need to get wheels onto my frame. Prior to this I had been using the wheels that came with the car, now they need to be tightened, trued, sand blasted and painted. I know the basics and have two articles on truing wire wheels. I'm looking for any tips, pitfalls to watch out for or general info on the process.

I have spokes and nipples, some new and some NOS so I am in good shape there.

However I do need to borrow or buy a hub, if anyone has one, so I can make a testing stand.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, tinkerman
 
Aloha,

I can't help you with a hub for a test stand, but if none is forthcoming you can always jack up the front of the car and use one of the front hubs.

Before you start out, the first thing to check is the condition of the all the wheel and hub splines. If any are worn they need to be replaced with new. Worn wheel splines will quickly ruin the hub splines and vice versa. Here is a link to British Wire Wheel that discusses what to look for:

https://www.britishwirewheel.com/faq.htm

I would suggest you have the inside and outside of the wheels blasted before you begin truing them. Use a grit to remove the paint and rust, but not so aggressive as to pit the metal. Removing the paint and rust will make adjusting the spoke tension easier, the nipples often tend to rust to the wheel rim.

Replacing a spoke may require several spokes be removed in order to lace the new one in. From my experience you will use more spokes and nipples than you originally needed to repair.

P.S. Have plenty of PB Blaster on hand.
 
Thanks Dave, yep after I posted the question I realized that I could use a front hub or a rear hub. The body is not on yet so they are easy to get to. I initially thought about sand blasting them first, then talked my self out of it. The more I think about it and the more I look at them I have to agree with you. Some of the nipples are covered over with paint and some with rust so it does make sense to uncover so the PB can soak through. I will probably have to heat some of them up to break them free.

All of the hub and wheel splines are in good condition. I have seen and reviewed the info from British Wire Wheel. I have, in fact, purchased some nipples and spokes from them.

Thanks for your thoughts.


Tinkerman
 
Hi Jeremy, yes they are, here are some links:

https://www.gomog.com/mi/GoMoG/allmorgan4.html

Hummph, that is THE link. Apparently they are part of the same article.

Hope That works for you. I got it off the internet so if it doesn't work you might try google. I think I googled "truing wire wheels". There are two parts to the article.

Aha! Just found the other link:

https://www.team.net/sol/tech/truwire.html

That link should give you both parts to the article, the top link will give you only one part. All else fails, PM me and I will snail mail you copies.

Good luck, Tinkerman
 
Back
Top