Wheel Woes

[CrazyG 0]

Hi CF members, this is my virgin post but I wish I'd asked for some advice earlier because I'm having issues!

 

I've owned a 1995 2.0 8v for over 5 years although I'd love a VR6 but with fuel prices going the way they have I'm probably sensible to keep a little bit more economy - besides, I've got a bike for my quick acceleration thrills :norty:

 

Recently, after a relatively cheap service and a sail through the MOT, I decided to treat the old girl to a shiny new set of rims. After scouring the net to find just the right alloys and a quick experiment with Photoshop to check they looked alright, I settled on 17 inch SSW Mesh 2s. Like a complete idiot, I neglected to check how many bolts my hubs took (I know!) and assumed they were 5. After the wheels arrived and I prised off the first centre cap I very nearly cried.

 

A quick phonecall to Motor Sport World revealed that their suppliers wanted a 25% handling charge to return said wheels and I would have to pay to courier them back. They also told be that the Mesh 2s weren't available in a 4 stud. So, the decision was made for me - I was keeping them to either flog on Ebay or find a way to make them work on my car...

 

The next step was the purchase of two 4/100 to 5/100 PCD adaptors which arrived the following day. Next thing I realised was that I would need one longer bolt per wheel to suit the design of the adaptors but meanwhile I had discovered that the wheels were supplied with M14 bolts when I needs M12s :bad-words:

 

So, I ended up lining the pockets of an ignorant independent car parts store who seemed to be more interested in reading his newspaper than nurturing a relationship with a new customer to get most of the bolts I required. The remaining bolts were procured from Ebay - a set of four 50mm long ones.

 

At last [i thought] I have everything I needed to get those bad boys on and after about 2 hours (would have been quicker but I had jack issues) one Saturday afternoon she was wearing her gleaming new shoes. She looked sweet but about a mile up the road I realised there were problems because the steering wheel was bucking about like a bitch!

 

I stopped to have a look and all four wheels seemed tight so I guessed they just needed rebalancing. Next morning I drove along to Kwik Fit (wish I hadn't - bunch of muppets!) and they balanced the two front wheels, chewing up my locking nuts slightly in the process with their blasted air tools!! :nono:

 

There was no improvement so I had the wheels off again only to discover that the PCD adapters weren't tight. This made a world of difference but there was still some wobbling, although by this time I had established that my 50mm bolts were slightly too long, preventing the wheels from sitting flush. Shaving off a few mills made more difference but there was still a slight wobble (I guess I should have filed the long bolts on the rear wheels too...)

 

Skip forward a week or so and my mate at work reported that my rears were weaving all over the shop so I deduced that trimming down the long bolts would cure the problem. Wheel off, adaptors off, threadlock on, torqued and one done [phew!]. I repeated the process for the second back wheel and while I was tightening one of the wheel bolts my torque wrench went bang and I nearly ended up flat on my face on the rain-soaked driveway. The thread on the adaptor had split and the bolt wouldn't tighten.

 

Now I've ordered another set of adaptors (more money :( ) but although I was sure at least one of the rear wheels would be perfect, they're both still wobbling! I'm running out of ideas and I'm a gnat's chuff away from returning the car back to standard.

 

HELP!!

[yeti 0]

hiya mate, soudns like you've had a bad run there, there are plenty of folks on here with 16v's and g60's who've fitted the vr6 spec hubs to allow the 5x100 wheels to fit as intended, you could do this for a more factory soloution and you'd never have to worry about the problems with spacers ever again! :-)

[was8v 0]

Sounds like the problem may be the centre bore of the wheels or adapters?

[CrazyG 0]

The wheels did come with spigot rings but seeing as I was sent the wrong size bolts it's quite feasible that the inner diameter of the rings is too big/small. It's weird how the front wheels don't wobble now though - maybe I was just lucky and got them dead centre when I bolted them up last time even though they're not fitting on the hub correctly?!

 

If the spigot rings are wrong, a VR6 hub conversion wouldn't solve the problem but if I went down that route how much [more] would I be looking at parting with?

[vwdeviant 0]

Are the adaptors "Hubcentric"?

 

Ah yes check spigot rings on both the wheels and the adaptors are correct... had this with a set of TSW's back in the day... one new spigot ring and sorted! :clap:

[CrazyG 0]

Aaarrrghh!!! I'm at the end of my tether with these damn things. I've just taken one of the rears off again to have a look and the spigot rings are correct. When I rolled the wheel separately along the ground it wobbled from side to side until it almost fell over - is that normal? Just as an experiment I've removed the balancing weights and although the wobble is no worse now when its on the car it's making an alarming scraping noise as it rotates. I'll obviously need to get them rebalanced but surely the problem is more serious than that?!

[BILLCOR 1]

:nono: I would suggest getting somebody that knows what they are doing to look at them before you have a major accident :wink:

[CrazyG 0]

It's alright, I'm sure the wheels won't fall off and I think I've sussed out the problem. I must have knocked the protector at the back of the brake disc so it was rubbing against it, creating the scraping noise. I've realised that by tightening the wheels bolts too much I've slightly buckled the PCD adaptors so they're not sitting flush, thus contributing to the wheel wobble. It's a costly learning experience I suppose :?