Changing Hubs

[James Atkins]

I am thinking of changing my knock-on wire wheels to bolt on type, has anyone done this themselves and is it a straightforward job?

Looking at the MGB manual it looks like just changing four driving flanges?

The reason I want to change is, I would like minilight alloys fitted and the knock-on type look a bit ugly and are very expensive - so think it would be cheaper to convert back to bolt on type.

Jim

[Peter Cresswell]

Hi Jim,
Was your car built as a wire wheel car? If so then you have a bit of a problem as the rear axle is considerably narrower for wire wheels than for disc (bolt on) wheels. The reason is to accommodate the length of the wire wheel centre and allow the wheels to have the same track on both wire wheeled and disc wheeled cars. At the front you do need to get disc wheel hubs and I believe they are a straightforward swap.

OR - if your car was built as a disc wheel car but has had a bolt on wire wheel hub and wire wheels with an offset to suit, then the change you are proposing should be quite straightforward, as the wire wheel hubs will be simply bolted to the disc wheel hubs.

Looking at your avatar picture it looks to me that your car is a wire wheel car.

[James Atkins]

Hi Peter

Thanks for the reply - I have pictures of the car prior to it's restoration and it had rostyles, and looking through the resto documents, it was converted to wire wheels, so I am guessing it will be discs then? and hopefully the job will be fairly straightforward (famous last words!)

Jim

[Adrian Oliver]

Jim.

If your car does have a 'wire' axle, then I bet there'll be a queue of people who would gladly swap their bolt-on wheels and undercarriage for your wire set up!

[James Atkins]

I have checked through all the resto documents and found that it had a conversion kit fitted, so doesn't have a 'wire' axle - but I guess I could sell the wires with the conversion kit, once I change it over to minilites - ideally I would have liked to put chrome rostyles back on (as it had rostyles originally) - but they are so hard to find.

[Dave Linkson]

I have the replica minilites (SCP Minators) and these would be a better bet than going back to Rostyles, with regard to quality.
But be aware that 5.5J 15" rather than 5.5J 14" rims may be better with regard to offset clearance on suspension component's.
Mine were fitted by PO and the nearside rim edge balance weight would contact the ARB when steering put to full right hand lock when doing a turn in the road, I've now removed the weight from the rim edge and had the flat stick on weight put to the inside of the wheel, but then the tie rod end still just slightly rubs on the rim when on full lock, but is of much less concern than the balance weight clanging on the roll bar.