Eccentric road wheel

[Tony Whitley]

I've been troubled by a vibration through the steering wheel. I've had the wheels re-balanced with no effect and there's no slack in the bearings. I finally used my brain and swapped the OSF wheel for a spare and it goes away. As the wheel was fine when the balance was checked I looked elsewhere for the problem and checked the distance from the centre hole (used for balancing) to the stud holes used for fitting to the car - there's something like 0.5mm difference (it's difficult to measure accurately). I bolted the wheel on the back of the car and I can feel a noticeable difference in the gap between the hub nut and the centre hole.

 

OK, so there's a manufacturing fault with the wheel but... it's always been on the OSF (it has the magnet for the cycle speedo) and the problem only started a few months ago. I always tighten the nuts by hand with the wheel in the air so they centre on the countersink.

 

Anyone explain? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Trevor Newman]

You are just barking Tony 😬

[Graham Perry]

Are you sure its not an eccentric tyre ? That would seem more likely

[Tony Whitley]

No, one explanation was that the worn tyre was causing it - but it was the same after fitting a new set. Car feels much nicer after swapping the wheel to the back but I'm lost without my cycle speedo (Caterham one is > 10% optimistic )

 

Thanks Trev

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

I found the switches set wrongly on CC speedo.

 

When corrected, now matches GPS speedo above 65 mph. It over-reads below that speed, which isn't a bad thing !

 

******************

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking...

 

And racing around to come up behind you again. new link to photos

[I.Mupferit]

Tony probably has the mechanical speedo, given the age of the car so no switches to play with.

 

Tony, at the risk of stating the obvious, why not just glue another magnet to one of the rear wheels before swapping them over?

 

Brent

 

2.3 DURATEC SV Reassuringly Expensive

R 417.39 😬

[andy couchman]

Or glue a magnet onto the back of one of the front wheel studs (magnetism holds it a bit but glue makes it secure). That minimises the out of balance risk and means you can then use any wheel. You'll just have to reposition the sensor.

 

If you have sleeved nuts rather than the normal tapered type (depends on what wheels you have) the wheel can run a bit out of true due to tolerances but otherwise maybe the result of a past (minor) kerb clout?

 

Andy

[SLR No.77]

Or fit the magnet/sensor to the diff/flange and forget about it

 

Stu.

 

www.superse7ens.co.uk..........the rebuild 😬

 

 

[sjmmarsh]

Tony

Anyone explain? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Which wheels are they? I have had a similar problem with my 16" HPC wheels. Caterham say they are quite 'soft' and can be damaged by impacts, including potholes.

 

Also, if you think about it, it is perfectly possible to balance a square wheel - but it won't roll that smoothly at all!

 

Steve

[Tony Whitley]

Yes, I'm going to move the speedo magnet to the wheel hub and I've already tried the car with the "bad" wheel on the back and it's much better (though not perfect, I suppose there's still some vibration transmitted from the rear). What I don't understand is why there wasn't a problem for a couple of years and then it showed up. I didn't ding a wheel (as best I can remember) though a pothole is a possibility. I suppose it must be that the 0.5 mm eccentricity is a red herring and the vibration is caused by something else - like a square wheel

 

(13" Minators by the way.)

[Budjuggler]

Maybe it's the herring that is unbalancing things The whole story sounds a bit fishy to me 😬

 

Andy

 

Whoops - there goes another one

C7 GON