Thank you, Carl,
I was thinking, these washers, being the Absolute Correct size for both nuts and wheels, will go quite a long way to stabilize the rims on the hubs; even without the flanged spacers in the event they don't arrive in time! The washers are so thick (1/8", 3+mm) there will be NO warping or coning! Some of the lug holes bear signs tightening under those loose washers.

They are another reason for longer studs, as they are the thickness of about 4 threads. That could mean the difference of stripping a wheel lug on a curve at speed or not.

The washer depressions in the rims are 1.25 inches diameter, the washers are 1.23 inches to prevent possible interference fit from warping/scaring due to loose washers and poor fit over the last decades.

My Official Jaguar Repair and Operations Manual published by British Leyland has an illustration of the hub/rotor combo, plainly showing five bolts on the OUTSIDE of the hub. As you know of course, that's an error. I was seriously disappointed to discover that.

I'm taking 4 tires back to Sears today to have the Correct Metal valve stems installed, as they were instructed to do in the first place, but put in rubber ones with decorative chrome sleeves and charged me for the metal ones. (we have a lot of trouble with rubber valve stems) They loaded the tires in a flurry, and I didn't notice until they were unloaded from the van. Someone was a little annoyed.

They got a call almost immediately, accompanied by a verbal attitude adjustment, resulting in an appointment for the very next day to put the proper stem in the spare only. They did that correctly and redeemed themselves somewhat, so today I'll leave the other 4 tires with them to be done properly -- at no further charge of course.

Below are photos of the different stems. First the cheap chrome sleeve on a good rim, then the proper all metal stem on the spare rim.

I'm off to work. I have to pick up my leaf blower today from the blower doctor. Leaf season is already upon us in some neighborhoods.
(';')

 

Well, your leaf blower is obviously a pro unit. I've two Diy stye, of course.




The electric is much less fussy, but lacks the zoom of the Toro two cycle. But, each beat the rakes all to pieces !!!


And, some leaf piles, I just run over with the mower and pulverize them.


And, soon maybe, I'll get the B&S powered vacumn to suck the leaves up for the for the green can or the old Troy-Bilt chipper /shredder.


None of pro quality as you need.


Carl

 

My blower is a backpack Husquvarna 370, 70cc engine, 570 cfm @ 198mph at the tube. It weighs 25-30 pounds depending. Some days, like the peak of Leaf Season I carry it several hours a day.

They didn't have it ready for me today, something about a holiday. Spacers didn't come either, maybe the same excuse. Those 2 made it kind of a Bummer day except that I did pick up my tires, With the correct valve stems so it wasn't a total loss.
(';')

 

Today husband called the company selling the flanged wheel spacers and learned they are an online sales company only, not the producers, thus merely the middlemen. However, they are the only ones husband could find who sell these spacers and he's very good at product searches.

This is what we think is going on: EZAccessory puts in an order to the company that actually produces the spacers. That company, Billet Specialties, waits until they have enough orders to justify a production run. The fella said EZAccessory is not the only one waiting for 3/8-inch thick flanged spacers. Billet Specialties tells him they will ship by September 8. This sounds to us suspiciously like the check is in the mail.

If we wanted 1/2-inch thick spacers EZAccessory has those in stock and we could have them on Monday. Those would be too thick for my car.

So we wait. We'll replace the missing rear stud and if the spacers don't arrive in time for the Club Tour we'll put on the flat spacers we already have. We aren't going to take the front hubs apart to change lugs at this time and risk my having to lead a Jaguar Club driving event with Wart! That would be Absolutely Unacceptable!!

The new correct washers should make the rims almost as secure as traditional steel rims held on by conical lug nuts in conical holes. There is the matter of steel strength vs alloy strength but anything will be better than the way it has been for the past year; rims held on basically by friction at 5 small points between the rims and hubs.

With those heavier washers in hand much of the stress and anxiety is relieved. The Club tour won't be a torturous as the drive to the lake in July was, which caused no discernible damage and the wheels didn't even fall off. Everything should be just fine.

So that's the plan for now. If/when the spacers do arrive I will continue this thread. Thank you for your patience.
(';')

 

The spacers aren't here but I'm continuing anyway with the new longer studs that have arrived from Across the Pond.

The shiny new chromed lug nuts arrived from last week from Summit Racing. Ooh they are Pretty!!

The nuts came with washers included but they're small like the ones we already have. The difference in washers is plain to see in the accompanying photo.
(';')

 

Husband has a trove of old obscure chemicals (usually in cans but not always) stashed in various cubby holes in the shop. Some of this stuff came from his dad, some came from yard sales, some was given to him by an elderly friend who couldn't bear to throw it away. He's an absolute sucker for stuff like that.

From this selection he produced a rather large (50ml) bottle of Permatex Maximum Temperature Bearing Mount (item number PX #62050) which he says he's had for several years. It's green; sort of like Green Slime. I'm only familiar with blue, and when I was a kid, red which I don't think is made anymore. Maybe Green takes its place.

Yesterday evening he ran a tap through the threads in the left rear hub where the lug bolt was missing, cleaned it with Berryman's Carb & Choke cleaner and let it dry.

He put 4 thin lines as in the second photo the full length of the threads (I only show one line) evenly spaced around the short end of the stud, and one line like this in the threads of the hub and screwed the stud into the empty hole. He did all this without calling me to bring my camera. But when he gets a wild hair like that there's no slowing him down for such frivolities as a photo op so I have made this demonstration photo with a similar size bolt.

To ensure it was going to be tight enough he double nutted the long end, jammed a bar between 2 other studs and made it as tight as he dared. (He has been known to twist off half inch grade 5 bolts just by brute force and awkwardness. So I usually stand watching and say, "<PLINK>" at an opportune moment and then he stops.)

The stud is curing now for a couple days after which he'll take the double nuts off, probably again with a bar jammed between other studs. He chases the threads with a die to be sure the they are OK after jamming with a bar like that but so far there hasn't been a hitch.

Below are some photos of husband's chemistry collection, a stack of seven (7!) completely Useless cheap a$$ spacers and the rear hub with the newly installed wheel stud, still with double nuts.

~~~~~~~

And, I got my blower back today, TWO WEEKS after they told me it would be 5 days. They had filed the paper work under my personal name rather than my business name.

Also, when he recently went there for parts for the emergency light plant, they got husband as the primary on my business account, which I was NOT pleased to learn. It's MY business and MY account, even though we both use it for small engine parts. I'm secondary on his accounts, he can be secondary on my single account! They fixed that while I stood there.

And wait till you learn what was wrong with the blower! The exhaust screen (probably the platinum spark arrester) was clogged with carbon; like a potato stuck in the exhaust pipe! They said that was because I didn't run it full throttle enough of the time!

Carbon on the valves.
Husband said it was merely constipated!!

I try to be considerate of residents near my work only using as much throttle as absolutely necessary. The blower started fine in the Spring but about July began not running well and got gradually worse, which is completely understandable now that I know the problem. So now I have orders from the Blower Doctor to blow the carbon out every once in a while to prevent this happening again! Darn!
(';')

 

He,he. yeah, I have a collection of old chemicals. off on the "dirty' side of my bench. includes a WWII military version of WD 40!!


So, the lug studs thread in rather than a splined interference fit. Much better.


Some time ago, I bought the bones of a trailer, merely for the 35 Ford wire wheels for my roadster project. I could not resist another project. So, I built a box trailer on the bones. The hubs were mid thirties vintage Ford on an odd axle. I decided to use some left over off road white spokers and a semi worn pair of off road tires. New long lug studs. Well, the fit was a tad loose. so, I reverted to the old days and welded the back sides.


Yeah, my dear late wife helped in "our" business. I was independent claim and loss adjuster for the last 25 of my 50 year insurance career. She managed the checking account and outgoing mail. At times, we had "discussions" as to why a personal bill could not be paid from the business account!!! With the aid of a small printing calculator, she was a master of balancing the two accounts!!! Also was the interface with the lady that typed my reports, the post office folks and the bank.


Oh, managed un the house as well!!! And, me!!


It was/is her Jaguar !!!


Carl


it iT
wsas

 

Excuse the typos!!!

 

Thank you, Carl,

The rear studs are screwed in, the front studs are splined press fit. We'll do those after the club drive. If they had been available on this side of the Pond and if they had arrived about a week earlier we would have had time to replace them in the past month, even with rebuilding brakes on Wart. But I'm not at all comfortable disabling the car to that extent with the deadline so close.

The spacers are still MIA and I don't think they'll be here in time and I'm *Very* disappointed. It's a good thing there's a contingency plan. With the new nuts and proper size washers I can use the good quality flat spacers I already have, the ones with individually drilled holes, and there will still be Such an improvement in wheel stability!

Around here, if it's an improvement, we call it Success until something better comes along.
(';')

 

This morning (neither of us works on Friday) as I was working around out back, husband stuck his head out the door and said, "When you get to a quitting spot come and see me in the garage." He had been to the Post Office while I wasn't looking, and with Great Flourish produced a Priority Mail envelope that <CLINKED> mysteriously.

IT CONTAINED THE FLANGED SPACERS!!

There was packing material all over the shop floor! It looked a bit like Christmas morning when I was a kid! There was no identification where these came from or what company made them, only the EZAccessory mailing label on the outside and just 2 Priority Mail envelopes inside, each containing 2 spacers.

I need to stop here and clarify a point I made earlier, wherein I was in error due to incorrect understanding. Billet Specialties clearly marks their products with blister cards which are vacuum sealed. These flanged spacers did NOT come from that company, and I was Wrong to say Billet Specialties were the hold up in their arrival. A photo below shows the difference.

Of course I wasted No time trying them on the car! On the rear they are a *Perfect* fit! The hub only needed a little bit of road crud scraped off, then the spacers seated Exactly like they should have.

The front, however, was a different story. The front hubs have grease zerks for the outer bearings which protrude beyond the profile of the hub and obstructed the fit. So husband removed the zerk (after thoroughly cleaning around it), turned it toward the bottom so nothing would fall into the bearing and I tried the fit again and it went on much further. It will be easy to grind a small notch in the back of each new spacer, making room for the zerk.

Taking the company's warning seriously that these might not fit without modification husband took careful measurements of the whole hub assembly and determined that another, much thinner spacer (.025") might be needed for these to work on my car. He ordered a pair of those 'just in case.' They are indeed needed as the next photo shows the gap between the flanged spacer and the hub, the next photo with the thinner spacer between them.

The spacer sandwich revealed the Critical issue of short lug bolts as shown in the next photo. Threads extend only 9mm beyond the spacer combo, making it Imperative to change out the standard front lugs for longer ones before the flanged spacers are permanently fitted. As the Club Drive is only one week from tomorrow and the entire hub must be disassembled to change lugs that will wait until after the meet. I'll post about that in this thread.

I got curious about the situation of the spacers on the front at the time we bought the car. So I got a couple of the garbage spacers and stacked them on the front hub just as we found them and measured the length of the lug. 7/16-inch (11mm) of threads is all there was!! I drove the car in that condition with my usual Enthusiasm and Panache for several months before we discovered it, and husband went through the roof when he saw how it was!

That's only 2mm more than I would have if I drove it with the new spacers, but now that I Know how little there is, I think I'll wait for longer lug bolts before fitting the new spacers.
(';')

 

WOW!!!


Yeah, that was an issue way back in the late forties when we kids swapped "modern" 15" disc wheels for ancient 19's or 21's on our Model A Fords. New longer lug studs welded in was the "proper" way. Some merely hoped. But, even the hotter model A's were not as fast as your NIX. and, if a wheel fell off around town, oh well???


As to the Zerks on the front hubs. Kind of incomplete as to a proper wheel pack at best!!! As the hubs will come off for a lug stud change, I'd order seals and do a wheel pack the complete way. Get some "female" Allen head screws and plug the holes. Bye, bye Zerks. In my opinion, they are a lazy way to do an incomplete front hub service.


Oh, I learned to pack wheels at about age 17!! No need to pack the space between the front and rear bearing. At best, merely a waste of product that adds nothing and may even promote leaks!!




Looking good!!!


Carl

 

1. We get that on Wednesdays. (and weekends of course)....unless I am working the weekend.

2. What the hell is a Zerk? Never heard that term before. (I am assumaing you are referring to grease nipples)

 

O1:


Yup, Zerk is the brand name for the grease nipples. The ones with a ball on the spigot for the jaws of the grease gun to lock on.


Way back when, there were at least two other types. One had a straight spigot, no bulb for the gun to seize on. The other had one or two pins on the spigot to locate the gun. Kind push and twist.


Ancient history. memory plus a recent acquisition of Dyke's Automobile encyclopedia, version 20's!!


Carl

 

Thank you, Carl,
I'm not too keen on my wheels falling off. I've seen that happen! There were no serious injuries, but I still feel no need to experience it myself. I like driving fast WAAAAYY too much to take a chance like that!!

I have Never seen a zerk in a wheel bearing other than boat trailers! We were quite astonished when we first discovered them several months ago.

New front seals are already here, in this box of pieces parts beside my desk. Husband ordered those when we knew the hub had to come apart to change studs, and he ordered seals at the same time as the longer studs.

Doing away with the zerk sounds like a Great idea! So much other stuff on that car isn't original I don't know why I was thinking of keeping the zerks! I'll pick up some plugs. It'll be easier and better anyway than notching the spacers.

Being the only girl among 5 children, I learned to pack wheel bearings before I could legally drive. When I was in college I was surprised how many of those guys had never done that! Really!?!? And most of them grew up in the country!!
(';')

 

Yes, Clarke, as Carl has said above.

On the farm nipples were short lengths of pipe threaded on both ends. I grew up calling grease fittings Zerks and will probably continue to do that the rest of my life. Childhood habits die Very hard.
(';')

 

Yesterday I was skulking around under the front wheel well of my car and was simply Amazed how much room there seems to be in there! So I decided to see Just Exactly Why I'm doing all this fooling around with spacers! I took all the spacers off and stuck a front wheel on and tightened it only enough to see where the interference was.

The first thing I discovered is we have too much precision. By that I mean, the washers fit the rims Perfectly, and they fit the nuts Perfectly, but they didn't fit all together. I put the washers in the rims and the nuts in the washers, but the nuts were then no longer centered on the bolts and complained about having to go through the rims!

Really?!?!

Further investigation revealed that while the OD of the washers fit the rims Perfectly with .002" slack, the washers themselves are not concentric with their holes. Not only that, the new lug nuts are not drilled concentric with their outer circumference! So there's .0015 out of round here and .002 out of round there there, multiplied by several holes which adds up to an interference fit of .0045 inch or so overall. Certainly it was enough so the last nut wouldn't go in the last washer on the last bolt. If they hadn't been so Perfect, if a little Fudge Factor had been allowed, it might have all gone together with no problem.

When husband discovered that he was Livid! How Dare "they" ('They' who do everything) sell washers and lug nuts that are not to Exacting concentric tolerances??! (And you think Clarke is a perfectionist!)

So early this morning he had me measuring the washers to find where the fat sides were, and this afternoon he ground off the eccentric part. There will be no more interference between the washers, the nuts, and the bolts.

Back to my original question:

When I got the rim/tire mounted enough to be able to tell how much space there indeed was around it I was Astonished to discover there was NO INTERFERENCE WITH THE BODY OR SUSPENSION AT ALL, EVEN IN A TURN!!! Once again I have been misinformed!

Then I was Really steamed to think all this drama might be for nothing! Well, maybe not for nothing, perhaps some have got some entertainment from it, but it began to look like the spacers were not needed and this had been a colossal waste of time and money!

Then I tried to put the hub cap on. HA!! Didn't happen! The S-II outer bearing cover extends too far to allow the hub caps to seat.

I took some measurements. These are different from the measurements needed for the flanged spacers. Those had to do with the diameter and depth of the hub flange, not the length of anything.

It appears 3/8 inch is about the minimum spacer needed to allow the hub caps to seat. So now I know.

I've attached photos to show how the hub caps don't fit and how far my S-II hub extends from the wheel seating surface; in this case, 2-3/4 inches. If your hub is, say, half an inch shorter you might not need spacers at all to run Xj40 Tear Drop rims.
(';')

 

Ugh!!


Yeah, "close enough for auto work" is a phrase, I and my master machinist son have heard, much to our consternation.


Some years ago, he bought a machine to hone rod ends. It would not hold tolerance.
A company tech came in and fiddled with it. After a time, he declared it good enough for auto work. "Get that junk outta here" was son's response. Yup, proud of him.
Got a competing machine and it did the job, properly, on spec.


As to the XJ40 wheels like NIOX, I do recall the bearing cap to hub cap issue. Some even omitted the grease cap. Must've been not only wrong, but messy!!! Not to ention the dry bearing potential!!!


I think the classic term for correcting tolerance errors is "blue printing". Exactly what your hubby is doing!!!


PS:


The orderly arrangement of the stuff in NIX's boot shamed me. That and the orderly space behind the back seat in Jeep!!! So, I tidied up the boot stuff in the Jguar's boot. Much better.


Sorry for typo. keyboard adrift.


Carl

 

Thank you, Carl,
Growing up on the farm as I did, one of the absolute unforgivable sins was to leave a bearing cup off.

Hub caps were little more than decoration and often fell off on gravel roads anyway, and with all that gravel flying around, some was bound to make its way into a bearing.

"Blueprinting, eh? I've heard that term applied to engines but never to rolling stock. But now you mention it, I suppose that's exactly what he's doing.

I heard there was a problem with the Tear Drop rims fitting some cars but it was never clear to me what the problem was. It's all clear to me now!

Nix's boot wouldn't put anyone to shame this past month. It's been somewhat disheveled and messy with the carpet wadded up while fooling with all the tires. And today husband tore it up again to work on the spare rim, which is a Real piece of work!

The more I see of the "care" and "maintenance" the previous owner did (or more correctly, Didn't do) the less respect I have for him, and it wasn't all that much to begin with!
(';')

 

After I had measured the length of the hub, husband thought it would be a good idea to measure the rims and spacers; Just in case.

It's a good thing he did because these are the results:

Rear Stub axle OD 2.900"
Front hub OD 2.902"
Spacer to hub/axle ID 2.905-2.906"
The spacers are a snug fit on the rear so they won't fall off when the tire is off. This is good! The front requires an extra spacer as noted above in this thread.

Tear Drop rim center bore ID 2.905"
Spacer to rim OD 2.915"

This number is not included in any of the specifications and measurements published by the sellers of these spacers!! The spacers are too big by .010" This is not a good thing. This is way beyond interference fit.

These spacers were sold as fitting all the Xj series although perhaps needing some modification. .010 is more than a Little modification! An extra spacer is a little modification!

Spacers should be exactly that; SPACERS! There is no mention of them being ADAPTERS! At any rate this discovery resulted in deep disappointment. In fact I was ready at that point to bag the whole hub-centric spacer idea as misrepresentation at the very least, and at worst........

Husband was angry! He has No tolerance for sloppy work and called the sellers to give them a piece of his mind. What could they do but offer to refund the money? No, he was determined to make them work and so thought about the situation for several hours before he decided the only thing to do was to make the rims fit as they will never be on another car anyway. How to do that was the question.

I couldn't deal with it so I went to work and killed some weeds. I always feel better after I've killed something.

This was going to be another of his Wild Hairs where I leave him alone to concentrate on the project at hand. Besides that, the car MUST be on the road by Friday afternoon at the latest and I would only have added to the tension of the job.

He took some Comp Time from work (they don't have to pay overtime that way) and began considering this problem, or at least standing looking at it.

I returned today to the whine of the air grinder in the garage and came into the house by another way so as not to break his concentration. Besides, his air tools are noisy. He must have heard me anyway (surprising as he uses ear plugs when working with air tools) because he came and got me, said to bring my camera.

He had a bright RED marker, a stack of flanged spacers and the spare. There was a Heavy RED Line on one spacer and a RED line on the inside of the spare rim. Then he showed me what he was doing.

He told me that machinists have a substance called Dykem which they use to mark where two parts come together. He was using the RED marker as dykem to mark where the spacer was interfering with the rim. He said he learned that from his dad. I admit I was impressed!

There was a RED line around the inside of the hole to mark where the spacer stopped and it was not necessary to grind off any more of the rim.

He made an index mark on the rim and the spacer, put the spacer in and turned it a few degrees each direction, removed the spacer to see where the high spots were. Then, with a sanding cylinder and his air die grinder he went round and round and ground off the red area up to the line in the center and tested again, grinding more, test fitting, etc, until there were no more red marks left in the bore.

After he got the bore cleaned up he had to do the chamfer because the spacer has a wider chamfer than the rim. (I think that was poor planning by the manufacturer) He wants these to fit Perfectly and seat Everywhere, with no low spots, no high spots, no bumps, no voids!

He only did the rear wheels and the spare because they are the only ones we Really need for the weekend. Later, when the front studs are changed and we install the flanged spacers he'll give the front rims the same treatment.

He also discovered the spare rim is broken! I could see it was bent on that spot. It's still holding air so it's probably OK as a spare, but a replacement is on the Hit List.

Tomorrow he'll start high-grading all the lug nuts we have around here, 39 of them, for 20 with the most closely concentric threads. If there was time he would order another 20 but there aren't enough days left for that.
(';')

 

When I came home today husband met me at the door with, "You have a choice."

It's never good when he starts out like that. Yesterday he found enough concentric lug nuts for the front so I thought all that was resolved and we had found solutions for the most serious and immediate problems. Maybe not. So I braced myself for bad news.

He continued, "We can torque the lug nuts and let the car down this evening or we can wait till tomorrow so you can say we've worked on it till the last possible day again."

He's so mean!

Given those choices I, of course, chose to wait until late tomorrow afternoon. NOT!! She's got all 4 on the ground, and let me tell you, those tires look Snarly!

As these are Xj40 rims it seemed prudent to torque them to Xj40 specifications of 65-75 foot pounds rather than Xj6 specs of 45-55 foot pounds. So that's what they're torqued to; 65 foot pounds.

I'll be able to spent all day tomorrow cleaning her of an inch of dust and shop cooties; vacuuming the inside, putting the boot in order, gathering tools and putting things away. In short, getting ready to leave early Saturday morning to lead a herd of cats to food and beer in that order.

This is been the worst example of Project Creep I have ever experienced! I hope it's not a harbinger of things to come.
(';')