The wheels, or at least the tyres, on the bus were a bit of a shocker at Bo'ness last year. I have two sets: Dunlop L section crossply racers on 5.5" wires, that are not road legal; and a selection of curiously old Semperit and Goodyears on standard 5" wires. Only after Bo'ness in 2013 did I read the DOT codes on the road tyres and understand why they seemed hard. I have also done my share of polishing chrome wires on the Morgan - and had no desire to return to that as a regime.
Where I ended up is with a set of modern compound, 70 profile, Vredestein Sportrac 5's on 5.5 Minator alloys that use splined adaptors in chromed steel. The Minators came off ebay and, although the rims were good, the Rudge-Whitworth adaptors had deteriorated and desperately needed to be rechromed.
Where I ended up is with a set of modern compound, 70 profile, Vredestein Sportrac 5's on 5.5 Minator alloys that use splined adaptors in chromed steel. The Minators came off ebay and, although the rims were good, the Rudge-Whitworth adaptors had deteriorated and desperately needed to be rechromed.
Well that sounds simple, but you try finding a chroming firm near you these days. A long time past I used London Chroming 'out the Old Kent Road, guvn'r. But then I lived in Sarf London and I could drive across to them. They are now a long way from Edinburgh. There are simply no chrome platers in Edinburgh and I had to scratch around the web a bit before settling on Keith at Quality Chrome in Hull. So then they went off.... Chroming took about six weeks, but prices were good and so is the finish.
Putting the wheels back together I had a conversation with 'Steve' at K&N Wheels, who happily provided the new hardware and information on torque setting and thread locking for me. I had called because the original 3/8"UNF bolt had a non-ISO shank length - but they subsequently had problems with these and now preferred to use standard sizes and have the choice of supplier.
I smeared the rear contact faces with copaslip, set up a bit of an assembly line to clean, loctite and torque the 40 bolts involved in five wheels. Then OCD set in and I aligned the outer faces of the dome nuts and applied dabs of torque seal (anti-sab) to the dome nuts.
The Vredesteins came from Camskill, as have many of my tyres in recent years. Fitted and balanced (remember these are 'wire wheels' for this purpose) by Taqir at CLCM. Now off for the annual MOT....
I smeared the rear contact faces with copaslip, set up a bit of an assembly line to clean, loctite and torque the 40 bolts involved in five wheels. Then OCD set in and I aligned the outer faces of the dome nuts and applied dabs of torque seal (anti-sab) to the dome nuts.
The Vredesteins came from Camskill, as have many of my tyres in recent years. Fitted and balanced (remember these are 'wire wheels' for this purpose) by Taqir at CLCM. Now off for the annual MOT....
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