66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

[Guest]

Hi - Just got my 1966 Coupe on the road after a two year restoration my father, friend, and I completed. It has new reproduction Knock Off rims. Used lead hammer while car was off the ground and installed safety pins. Rims are mounted in the proper position on the car. While driving two of the center caps popped off and were lost. Removed other two caps and all remaining safety pins (3 - 1 missing from where one of the caps came off). Retightened spinners and drove around 10 miles. All four spinners were loose with front drivers side spinner almost off car. Jacked car up and re-hammered all spinners. Drove back the ten miles, drivers front again became extremely loose. Not sure I could hit them on any harder.

1) What is proper instructions for tightening spinners (no instr. came with rims)?
2) Obviously the safety pins should be installed, but why would rims loosen wihout them? My understanding was originals did not have this feature.
3) Why would center caps pop off? Are pins too long or are they walking out pushing the caps off? Any tricks for keeping caps on (silicon/LocTite)?
4) What about loctite on spinners?

Any advice to prevent these rims from falling off would be appreciated. Eric

[Mike McKown]

The first mistake was trying to tighten the wheels

in the air. You need to snug them up in the air, let the weight on the wheels and then go into the tightening routine. My routine is to slip a piece of schedule 40 pvc pipe over the spinner and then hit it with a five pound short handle sledge. Several good licks is all it takes to get it plenty tight enough. The trick is to hit it solid and to do that, the wheel has to be on the ground. I went to the steel sledge and pvc after destroying a couple lead hammers. Much better. I don't recommend you do it but I never messed with the pins. The design of the wheel/hub/spinner doesn't require it and if you use the aluminum pins, they'll shear off anyway if the spinner comes loose.

Don't waste your time on rubber mallets, dead blow hammers or anything that will not put a solid lick on the spinner. They don't come loose if properly installed. Make sure your adaptors are mounted correctly to the hubs. In other words, make sure they are indexed to the wheel studs in the proper holes. This may have been your problem. Somebody will probably post a visual aid to show you what's correct.

Make sure the drive pins on the hubs are a snug fit in the wheels. Any rotational play here will loosen the wheel even if it's properly installed.

[Jack H.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Factory original KH KO's did NOT use 'safety pins'... Those are an invention of the repro wheel mfgr to defray product liability in the event owner doesn't look-up/read/follow Chevy's original instructions for mounting KO wheels.

FIRST, you need to make sure you have RH and LH adaptors properly mounted or the wheels WILL try to self-loosen during operation!

Next, you center the wheel on the adaptor off the ground and tighten the spinner modestly (eliminate wobble/slop). Now, lower the car fully to the ground and give the spinner FIVE HARD blows to firmly set the wheel.

Do NOT use the factory original lead hammer! That's a roadside only emergency tool and NOT a general purpose shop tool. You'll wear it out VERY quickly... Get a solid lead hammer for your shop (search the archives on this subject as there are a number of good prior inputs).

At this point, you're only one third done! Go drive the car for 40-50 miles and re-torque the spinners again with FIVE HARD blows.

Drive more and do final torque at 200 miles. Again, FIVE HARD blows. Note: when driving the spinner, be careful NOT to miss or you'll take out a fender lip, center cap, wheel cone, Etc...

When properly installed (above repeats the Chevy original instructions), you won't need safety pins. Plus, the use of safety pins potentially thwarts the above repeated torque sequence by holding the wheels on the adaptors before they're fully torqued down!!!

[John H.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

There are ten holes in the wheel - five are one diameter, for the drive pins, and five are a different diameter, and are clearance holes for the lug nuts that secure the adapter to the hub; this means there are ten ways to install the wheel, and five of them are wrong. If they're indexed incorrectly, they WILL loosen and fall off. Use a film of anti-seize on the spinner/adapter threads and on the conical surface where the spinner engages the wheel; that reduces thread and sliding friction and lets all the energy of wailing on the spinner generate clamping force (which is what keeps the wheels on).

[Guest]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Thanks for the advice. The first message mentioned "indexed to the wheel studs in the proper holes". What does this mean? The second response mentions factory instructions. Does anyone have these and can they forward to me. Sounds like my issue is using factory lead repro hammer rather then a bigger heavier hammer. Any other advice appreciated. I'm afraid to drive the car until this is safely resolved.

[Mike McKown]

"indexed to the wheel studs in the proper holes".

It means the same thing John said. There are ten way to put the wheel on and five of them are wrong.

There's nothing wrong with the factory hammer except you can wear one out changing a flat tire. There's enough mass there to tighten the wheel. That's why you should look for an alternative. Something SOLID.

[Joe C.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Eric,

There are ten holes in the wheels where the lugnuts should "nestle", five of these holes are slightly smaller than the other five. THE LUGNUTS MUST BE POSITIONED INSIDE OF THE LARGER HOLES. It is possible to install the wheels with the lugs in the wrong position........this will guarantee a catastrophe.

Properly installed Western KO's are bulletproof! Lube the KO threads and mating surfaces LIGHTLY with anti-seize before installing. If the wheel is properly oriented with the adapters, there should be about 1" of threads protruding beyond the wheel hub before installing the spinners.

Joe

[Bill Stephenson]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Eric,

--------Im sorry to be the one to bring this up, but you may have damaged something on the one wheel you say has come loose several times in particular. Closely check the threads on both the spinner and adapter. Also inspect all the holes in that particular wheel as five of them will have been severly gouged if the wheel was indexed incorrectly one time or more. A long time ago my pal Bob Sindelar told me his method of making sure the wheel is in the correct position on the adapter. It is simple, really, and only involves counting the number of revolutions the spinner makes before contacting the wheel. Once you have this done you always know the wheel is indexed correctly without having the cone off the wheel. Hope this helps.........Bill S

[Michael H.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Bill is absolutely correct. If the wheel is indexed correctly, it will require roughly seven complete turns of the spinner to make contact with the wheel. If the wheel is indexed incorrectly, I think the number of turns is something like four.

[John H.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Here's a photo of the back side of an original KO wheel - the five large holes are the clearance holes for the adapter lug nuts, and the five smaller holes are for the drive pins. This wheel was installed at least once by some klutz who mis-indexed it with the drive pin holes on the lug studs (one of the five ways to install it wrong), which left the hex impressions from the lug nuts around the drive pin holes. The wheel MUST be indexed to the adapter with the drive pins in the small holes and the lug studs and nuts in the large clearance holes, or only a few threads will engage between the spinner and the adapter, the wheel will loosen, then will fall off.

[Michael B.]

Re: 66 Repro Knock Offs coming loose

Eric:

I have the instruction in PDF format. If you or anyone would like a copy, please e-mail me at jntdysf@msn.com.

Mike