We received an MGA recently for a mechanical sorting session. The first thing we did was put it on the lift to check for any front end issues. We were shocked to find an obscene amount of play in the front wheels.
Click “read more” to see the video below, where you can see that the play in this front suspension wasn’t due to king pin wear, or bad bushings, or old wheel bearings; rather, it was all because the spokes for the wire wheels are loose, and each wheel is effectively no longer supporting itself. Yikes!
What causes the spokes to loosen like this? Generally, it occurs by letting the wheels age past their prime, and hitting lots of potholes to loosen up the spokes, combined with a lack of proper front end maintenance, eg, if the shocks are blown, more stress is delivered to the spokes.
A new set of wire wheels and fresh tires will fix the problem, and luckily we caught this before the car covered too many miles in the present condition. If you’re driving a wire wheel car, whether it be an MGA, Sprite, Midget, Triumph, or any other wire wheel-equipped car, we urge you to make sure this isn’t an issue with your wheels. To check for play in the spokes, jack up the car so the wheel is off of the ground and support it with jack stands or a lift. Then, pull on the tire at 12 and 6 o’clock. The video will be able to illustrate the issue well, and if you have this kind of play in the wheels, replace them immediately!
Once you replace your wheels or at least inspect the ones you have, you can prevent something like this from happening by making sure your shocks are good and your tires are fresh, so that the car has a fighting chance of absorbing the bumps, instead of having all the energy transmitted into the spokes of the wheels. This will help extend the life of your wire wheels!
Sometimes people talk about adjusting spokes on wire wheels to tighten them. In the case of this wheel, I doubt you could turn the nipples-they’re probably rusted shut. To properly true a wire wheel, particularly an old wire wheel, is not the best use of our time, so for roughly $350 per wheel, we just replace these. That’s a fair trade to start the clock over with a safe, new product.
Should you encounter this problem on your Spridget, we stock both gray painted and chrome-plated 13″ wire wheels to replace the bad ones you have. As an added bonus, our new wire wheels do not require tubes like traditional wire wheels do, making tire installation much easier (and cheaper, too!). Click the photos above to order your set today! Should you have another British car that requires a different wheel, such as a 14″ wheel like on MGBs or a 15″ wheel like on MGAs and Big Healeys, give us a call and we will be happy to provide them for you!
If you’d like your MGA (or other British car) gone through and made wonderful again, please let us know. We’ll be happy to pick it up and bring it here for a thorough inspection and upgrade!
