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Wire wheels and clunks

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mgbcca

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I have a '75 MGB that has been converted to wire wheeks by a previous owner. Recently, I started to hear a clunk from the front end when the brakes were applied. This only occurred whilst the car was moving, never stationary. There was some slight noise from the pedal assembly, but no real slackness. Suspecting something loose in the brake area -- caliper or pads, I jacked up and removed each front wheel in turn and checked for anything loose. Finding nothing, I greased the splines and replaced each wheel. Result: clunk had gone.

Here's my question:
When I removed the wheels, it seemed to me that I needed a lot of effort to get the spinners off. So they were definitely securely attached. Is it possible for the wheels to seem to be secure, but actually loose enough to cause a noise when the brakes are applied?

Thanks in advance for your advice.
 
If the front wheel splines are truly clunking, tightening the spinners more will not help. The hub splines and or the wheel splines are worn to the point where they are soon going to strip completely. Guess what happens when you apply the brakes & only one front wheel stops while the other spins on the splines.!

If the splines on either the wheel OR the hub do NOT have a flat surface on the tops, but are a sharp inverted V, they are dangerously worn. There should be no more than 3/16" free travel, measured at the outer tire circumference. You can jack a wheel up, have someone hold the brake, rotate the tire, & estimate how loose the splines are.

The problem "could" be a suspension bushing or other loose or worn suspension part.
D
 
Agree with Dave. Sounds like worn splines and they can be dangerous. Replacing the wheels and splines is expensive, but will last forever if taken care of properly. The splines on my '65 have 300,000 miles on them and are in great shape. Chances are, yours were damaged or neglected at some point in their lives.

I did have a wheel spin once and it wasn't pretty. To read about it, Click Here
 
Uh...you need to change them BOTH...front and back! That means four new wheels and four new hubs. That is, if you determine that it is indeed the splines that are bad. Maybe you're not understanding the severity of loosing a wheel at highway speed in a convertible. I'd say death is a distinct possibility. Once those splines start to slip on you, the wheel will work the spinner loose and you could loose a wheel. As was said earlier, a lesser but still dangerous situation exists wherein you hit the brakes in a panic stop and the hubs stop but the wheels rotate on the splined hubs and allow the car to keep moving forward. The best situation that you could hope for with worn out splines is that when you accelerate, the rear hubs spin in the wheel and you lose forward momentum. Bad part about this is that every time you jump a spline, you run the risk of loosening your spinners and a wheel coming off. If one wheel/hub is worn, I'd be safe and replace them all. Actually, my splines were worn and needed to be replaced so changed over to bolt-on wheels. I fought it for a while, but determined it was much cheaper and safer to do that than to fool around with wires anymore.
 
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