Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

strange rumbling from the back on the motorway to work today....Hmm..rear wheel bearing going? Diff?.. on the last left turns before parking a strange "tschk tschk tschk" from the rear offside wheel as if something was rubbing. phew, not the diff then.

The spinner was on by about 2 threads, and the wheel VERY VERY loose. was easily tightened by two fingers. shit.

Changed all four tyres about a week ago, so the moral is this: ALWAYS RETIGHTEN THE BLOODY SPINNERS AFTER DRIVING A BIT ON NEW WHEELS/TYRES!!! As we all know but easily forget.

Thor,
The same thing happened to me many years ago. Be thankful that it wasn't a front wheel. My left front came loose at a high speed autocross, and I very nearly totaled the car - and the Armao barrier looked very close to my left shoulder!

Art
26/4934

Thor, I have heard the same sound coming from a back wheel, and did not know what could be wrong. Then seeing my spinner real lose I felt real stupid and even more stupid as I did not have a hammer with me. My wife could no stop laughing. Just my luck I parked near a home constructiion site where I found a scrap of wood and found a large rock that did the trick. Now she is really laughing. Now if I go anywhere, she'll say "don't forget your rock"
That happened before my spinner tool was around. I now torque the spinners on. Have you ground off the top of your tool yet? When you do let me know how much had to be removed. When I do another run, I'll make the correction so it will fit your alloy type wheels with out touching.
Sarto

And yes, Sarto, of course both torque wrench and your spinner tool was in my boot, so fixed it in 20 seconds...
Still scratching a bit, because I don't have any electric grinding tool to sort it out with, and hand filing is way too tiresome..

Sarto,

I now use the same alloy/spinner combination as on Thor's +2. Previously I has original steel wheels.

With the steels it was sufficient to use a soft faced (hide or plastic) mallet, hit the spinner ears a few times after hand tightening. Never experienced any loosening.

When I first fitted the alloys and new spinners, I used the same technique even the same mallet. Very different story, they were always coming loose. Sometimes within a half mile from home. Very scarey.

I tried many different methods, mallets, hammers and materials (to prevent marring my shiney new spinners) to no avail. It got to the point the I convinced myself that I must have made an error when rebuilding the car and put the hubs on the wrong side but no they were ok. I had never lubricated the threads and the new spinner threads were dry.

I have only found one solution. Using a lead hammer and with the wheels on the ground I hit the living daylights out of the spinners (being careful not to strike the wheel). I hit them until the is not the slightest movement and then hit them some more. Take the car on a short drive with the hammer in the trunk or boot (depending upon your persuasion) and when I get home, hit them again. I sometimes find that there is a slight movement on tightening after the road test but thereafter they are tight.

Yes, the spinner ears are marked and slightly deformed even using a lead hammer but so what? compared to the alternative prospect of deformation of the fibreglass or self.

I've just measured the clearance between inner and outer end of the spinner ears and the wheel web.

Inner clearance 10mm, outer 25mm.

I keep meaning to order the torque tool and hope one is available soon for the alloy/spinner combo.

Stu

Here's a couple of things to remember with knock-off's:

1. Make sure there fit between the locating pegs and the wheel holes is snug.

2. The spinner threads need to have higher friction than the mating surfaces of the spinner and the wheel. So, lube the spinner to wheel interface lightly and keep the hub and spinner threads unlubed.

3. Aluminum wheels expand a lot more for a given temperature change than the steel hub to which the spinner is attached. Therefore, they should be tightened when everything is cold. Heat will tighten the connection.

Bill

One thing to check with a Plus 2 with the Lotus knock on alloy wheels is the fit of the peg holes with drive pegs. On one of my wheels the tolerances were such that the wheel stopped a couple of millimetres before seating on the hub held up by the drive pegs when being pushed into place. If you did not drive it properly onto its seat when tightening the spinner it would come loose. Once the weight of the car was on the wheels it was very hard to do this and the wheel would appear to be firmly in place when it was still not seated on the hub.

I did not realise this until I almost lost a wheel also. If the spinner moves more than about a 1/4 turn when being tightened with a lead hammer after the wheel is put on and the spinner spun up by hand then the wheel was not properly seated in the first place and you need to check why it did not properly seat.

Regards
Rohan

Stu,
Hitting the spinner with a plastic or a rubber mallet I could never get them on tight enough. It took something harder like a lead, brass or a copper hammer. I never knew how tight or how much torque I beat on.

I use a 24", reversible, ratcheted torque wrench to tighten my spinners. Some torque wrenches only torque in one direction and that is a problem on the other side of the car. I have been using 200 ft/lbs of torque and checking them from time to time. So far they have remained tight. And I have thrown my rock away. If you decide to get a torque wrench make sure to get a 250 lb reversible with ratcheting action.
I use my spinner tool wrench so I do not have to hit the spinners with a hammer.
If you are now using the same alloy wheels that Thor has on his +2, your wheels are designed so that the spinner fits very close to the wheel. Thor has one of my wrenches and on his alloys wheels my tool just touches the wheel and will need to be ground down a little so that there is no metal to metal contact.
The tool works well on the lotus spinners even the panasport type but on the alloy type that you have, will need some grinding to use my tool.
I have seen a 25" long, 1/2 breaker bars for $13.99, with a life time warranty. Should work just as well as a torque wrench. Seems pretty cheap.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/D ... mber=37150
After proper pinning and setting of the wheels, as the others are suggesting, torque them on and check them once in awhile.

Sarto

Sounds like mine aren't seating properly as Rohan suggests. Time to break out the measuring devices.

Thanks guys

Stu

Mine don't seem to have loosened much, BUT now the warning of bad tyre fitting to the Lotus alloys have come into play, as the aforementioned loose wheel seems to have lost 14psi in a week. By a bit of rubber sticking out at one point, I suspect the tyre fitters damaged the bead... damn. Will take the wheel to them tomorrow. They did however do the best balancing job I've come across. Silky is the word. (silky but leaking.. )

Thor,

Don't be too quick to condem the fitter. It could be a porus rim. Clean it and give it a good coating of paint to seal it. Had one of mine done that way and it cured the leaking problem. (I was loosing 2 or 3 lbs per week)

Hamish.

haven't got time for that, want to drive! Besides, there is a piece of rubber sticking out at one point, it was bigger but I pulled if off. Looks like a ripped bead..... . .

Check the depth of the peg holes in the wheel - I had one that was way too shallow, and it had previously pushed the drive pegs partly out of the inside of the hub...
I even have a bill from a previous owner which states that a wheel had been bolted on without locating on the pegs at all (I suppose you can't see them poke through the alloy wheels like you can on the steel ones), and pushed all of them flush! It was only spotted when the wheel kept coming loose & 'spinning' on the hub...

Another solution to the problem of tightening is to fit the US hexagon nut 'spinners'. I know many people like the sixties look of shiny spinning things, but they are so much easier to get really tight with the associated long spanner.

Matthew

Matthew, I must admit that after these postings and all the hassle lately I've contemplated going back to the hex'es, but after about ?110 spent on the chromed spinners, and the spinner tool, that's not an option, besides they're sooooo pretty.
Got the wheel back from the tyre fitters. a bit of rubber was between the rim and bead causing the leak, apparantly fixed now. Now to THOROUGHLY degrease the threads before fitting said wheel and spinners... and a bit of lube between spinner and face of the wheel was it? why not evrything as dry as possible?

A thought that has been on my mind for a long time.
The Chapman theory about the reversed use of the conical (internal cone on the wheel) seating for the spinners as opposed to the traditional wire wheels with an external cone.
Chapman is quoted by Ron Hickman that the right hand thread must be on the right side of the car & this he demonstrates by running a cotton bobbin around the inside of a ring.
Here's a question to you theoretical guys:-
The "Two Gates" alloy Minilite copy wheels supplied by "Spyder" have a flat front surface, onto which a steel adaptor ring with a flat mating surface sits. On the other face of the adaptor ring is the internal cone into which the spinner locates.
Does Chapmans self tightening rule still apply in this case or does it become reversed or neutralised?