Aluminium Wheel Hubs

[Sondar]

Anyone had any ally front wheel hubs made for their 7 in Australia?

I'm keen to do it if I can get some at a reasonable price - mainly to get the unsprung weight down and a set of uprated bearings.

Sondar

[92rrrandall]

The Wedge Shop was recently exploring the possibility of producing alum front wheel hubs. There are so many improvements that can be made to them, I decided to make my own set. Here is a picture before they went on the car:

[Sondar]

They look good!

What improvements did you make?

Sondar

[92rrrandall]

These weigh only half as much as iron but are stronger. This reduces the unsprung and rotating weight. The stud pattern is changed to 4 x 100mm. The outside bearing is larger. The front track is reduced which allows me to use wider tires with no rubbing. The wheel center holes are slip fit to the hubs. Minimal corrosion.

That is all I can think of at this moment.
Randall

[92rrrandall]

[cliff]

Randall, The new hubs look great and the weight savings has got to be an improvement. Have yhou had a chance to run the new hubs on the car yet? How have they performed? Have they made a difference in handling? Any report you have will ber helpful.

Cliff

[92rrrandall]

They have been on the car for several months. I want to get some lightweight brake calipers, but it is a challenge to cough up $700 right now.

Randall

[tr7inc]

Hi guys, love these wheel hubs, how much in pounds sterling or dollars would a set cost if you dont mind me asking?


Steve

[Sondar]

Yeah, those are the advantages I was looking for - except that I'll keep the pcd standard.

BTW, has anyone seen the "race" front suspension developed by Triumph Rover Spares in Oz? Looks pretty good to me & takes the roll bar out of the stub axle location. Sorely tempted, but I'll have to save up for a while to find the $1,950!

Sondar

[UKPhilTR7]

They sure look nice, can they only be brought from the Wedge Shop and how much are we looking at?

[Sondar]

Randall,

Is the method of torqueing up the bearings on your new hubs the same as the standard? That's one thing I wanted to get away from as it seems to be firstly very low torque, & secondly rather imprecise (backing off one flat). I'm not sure if it's something we're stuck with though due to the design of the stub axle?

Sondar

[92rrrandall]

I do have a machine shop and am profficient at producing prototypes. However you need some CNC lathes to get the labor cost as low as possible to resale parts. If someone else wants to produce the hubs, then I will supply my dimensions for the first prototype.

The (lack of)preload on the bearings has been one of my motivating factors for using larger bearings. My guess would be that larger bearings would allow less looseness in the setup. So my bearings are less loose that original setup, and they seem to be OK after 2 or 3 thousand miles. My front wheels seem more solid than with the original hubs. However this may be the result of more precision machining or stronger hubs. I used 7075 alloy which is as strong as steel, but 1/3 as dense.

Also note that I decided to create dual bolt pattern for my rear wheels. I mounted my rear wheels on a milling machine and drilled the extra 3.75" hole pattern. You cannot see the extra holes under my hubcaps. I am using BBS 14 X 6 on the front, and BBS 15 x 7 wheels on the rear. The BBS wheels have more offset which narrowed my rear track and allowed 225 wide tires with no rubbing at all. The overall front & rear track is about the same as original with wider tires. The front has to not touch the struts or rub the fenders when you are turning.

Randall

[Craig C]

I have been looking at using Wilwood aluminium hubs on my Tr7V8, as I wanted to change PCD to 5x114.5mm. I am now an expert on bearings after studying the Timken catalogue to try and figure out what bearings correspond to which vehicle applications as Wilwood do not provide easily referenced dimensions.

I can now tell you that there are NO larger bearings for the Tr7 stub axle outer bearing dimension (hence Woody’s kit using a sleeve). There are however, lots of options if you use a Rover SD1 suspension leg. In fact, the SD1 stub axle bearing surface diameter pairs are the same as a number of common US cars (early Camaros etc).

So, theoretically, a Wilwood hub (approx $122 each from Summit Racing) should fit either a SD1 suspension leg with no mods, or a TR7 leg with a sleeve for the outer bearing.

I have just bought a pair of new SD1 legs from Rimmers (some of the Indian stock) but haven’t yet purchased the Wilwood hub to test the theory. The fact that the Aussie dollar just tanked to US$0.73 means I badly missed my opportunity to buy when we had near parity (a scant two months ago!).

So, if you wish to change PCD to something that gives infinite wheel choices, Wilwood aluminium hubs MAY be a cost effective answer. I will let you know.

If you want to keep standard PCD get back to your lathe…

Craig
Tr7V8

[Sondar]

Randall,

Thanks for the offer - dimensions would be a great help, as I'm looking at using a CNC equiped machine shop to make up the hubs.

Sondar

[Vegas_M]

Hi Randall,

I agree, a pdf of the dimansions would be a great help!

Thx.

Martin