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Should I be wired or what?

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198686d

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Gentlemen:

I have painted wire wheels on my 61 BE which has a 1275cc, front discs, rib case tranny. Was going to repaint wire wheels during winter using a wheel mask, etc. They look good now, but they will look better after painting. KLnock offs are beautiful shape chrome.

I also have the 5 original steel wheels that are in perfect mechanical shape along with the 4 original hub caps. I'm beginning to think that getting these orig. wheels powdered coated in an appropriate, subtle silver color would make the car look better ...it's just my opinion.

What is the consensus out there? I have new tires/tubes all around. Could I still use them?

Appreciate the help.

dave in St. Louis
 
Make darn sure they are in go shape not just appear so. Take a good look at them and make sure the rivets from disk to rim are good and then doll them up and mount them! love the steel wheels and hub caps.
 
Wires look a bit better: old school, classic, cool. IMHO More of a pain though. You have to change hubs of course you know that probably.
 
Dave, to correctly fit the disc wheels you would need to get the correct rear axle housing and hubs for disc wheels as it is about 1.5" wider than the wire wheel axle, unless your wires are fitted with bolt on adaptors. That might be a problem to find one for the BE. Reusing the tires and tubes shouldn't be a problem, both style wheels were designed for tube type tires. Wires are a pain for maintenance, but look neat on a BE although they were not original equipment. IMHO wires really set off a darker colored car and discs work better on the brighter colors. Check out the black BE on the home page of the Moss Forum page with wires, stunning. https://www.mossmotors.com/Forum/
 
Maybe I'm in the minority but I prefer the standard disc wheels with small chrome hubcaps. My car has a set of the one year only rostyle wheels from 71 or 72. They're in perfect shape but I don't like them either. I wish I had the original style discs for my '67 Sprite.
 
Keep an eye on eBay for orginal wheels. That's where Miss Agatha got hers.
 
The wires are nice, but are a costly conversion. The rear is hard to get and $$$ if you can find one. We did one about four years ago, and by the time it was done we had to go for chrome wires.

<span style="text-decoration: line-through">It was from our usual vendor and for the cost I was not pleased with them at all. </span>


Oh well the wires are nice, but be prepared to open your wallet.
 
I have no idea if the Spridget can be done like the MGB can, I've not paid much attention to spoked hub Spridgets over the years as far as the assembly is done. On my 1967 MGB, it was a factory spoke wheel car, as mentioned above most LBC with splined hubbed spoke wheels havew a slightly narrower rear end housing to accomondate the splie hubs and such. Anyway on my 67 MGB, I had the nicest spoke wheel you could ever ask for in the Dayton chrome tubless spoke wheels, and even though I liked the way they looked, well maybe a bit too elegant for my taste, I didn't want to live life with car over the long haul with splined hubs, and spoke wheel which ca very easily ass to the cost of keeping a LBC up, so I converted my 67 MGB to bolt on wheels using thew same rear end housing.
What I had to do was obtain a set of front and rear bolt on wheel hubs, and since the factory wire wheel rear housing was narrower, I needed on the rear to usae longer studs and a bour .400" of wheel spacer. It wasn't a real hard job and I ended up with a rear housing width that was a bit easier to use wider tires on, and got a set of Superlite wheels for my car, which while the chrome spoke made the car look elegant, the Superlite made it look sporty and that was the look I was after, and now I don't have to worrk about spoke wheel ans splined hub issues in the future.

So in closing it may be worth looking into if one can convert from spokes to bolt on wheels using the same rear housing with a Spridget as you can with a MGB, there are plenty of parts already avaialbe to do this with if it can be done, Winners Circle has longer 7/16" wheel studs ( I beleive every Spridget should update to 7/16" studs, and get away form the puny 3/8" studs) and WC also has really nice wheel spacers in a variety of widths.
 
bill_young said:
Dave, to correctly fit the disc wheels you would need to get the correct rear axle housing and hubs for disc wheels as it is about 1.5" wider than the wire wheel axle, unless your wires are fitted with bolt on adaptors. That might be a problem to find one for the BE. Reusing the tires and tubes shouldn't be a problem, both style wheels were designed for tube type tires. Wires are a pain for maintenance, but look neat on a BE although they were not original equipment. IMHO wires really set off a darker colored car and discs work better on the brighter colors. Check out the black BE on the home page of the Moss Forum page with wires, stunning. https://www.mossmotors.com/Forum/
Click to expand...

Bill ... that answer really helps. I'm staying with wires. Your analysis sealed the deal. So, thanks for saving me a lot of $ and hassle...highscale annoyance. Painting the wires sounds like a good time the more I think about it.

dave
 
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