Wire wheel problems
 

Hi this is my first post. I hope some of you will be able to help me. I recently purchased a 1988 jaguar xj6 VD Plas. I bought the car for it's excellent condition, price and low miles. The car is regularly driven and has to deal with a 30 mile trip to school and 30 mile trip back a day.

I have had only little problems that one would expect from a twenty year old car, except for the wheels. My car has the five bolt wire wheels on it. I am pretty sure they are factory. I have owned the car for almost three months and have had three blow outs. They also tend to leak.

While changing the tires we learned that two wheels are running inner tubes while the other two are not. The place where I get my tires said that running an inner tube in a tubeless tire would cause the tire to blowout. Is this true? I've never heard that before. Im running modern goodyear tires, and there not the cheap ones. They cost about $130 each and you can see why my bank is hurting from them keep going out.

I do know that all four tires have been sealed with silicon and two of the are leaking from that silicone. Is there a better and easier way to seal that rim or am I better off replacing the wheels with mags?

Any help here would be appreciated.

I have never heard of the tubes causing blowouts, but both are rare. It's hard to even find a tube anymore.

The wire wheels are not factory, although they may well have been dealer installed when the car was new. Leaks from older wheels is very common, and stripping and renewing the silicone sealer is the best method. You could call Dayton Wire Wheels in Dayton, Ohio for their suggestions...they probably made the ones on your car.

As for replacements, look in the "Vendors for sale" section of the classifieds on this forum. I posted photos of two styles of factory wheels I have in stock which would be a great upgrade for you car, those are 16" Kiwi and Dimple styles. I also have 16" VDP wheels which will look great as well.

Ugraded to these on my '88 Vanden Plas in '94. They are Jaguar stock wheels for the XJS.

Click on the image to make it larger.