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another wire wheel hubcap problem


RIVNIK

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Greetings, fellow Rivs......I have a set of wire wheel hubcaps on my 65. I completely disassembled and cleaned them & they turned out nice. But one of them creaks at creeping to low speed no matter which wheel it is on. I have retightened all the screws to the max and made sure the hubcap was well seated with little effect. Anyone have a possible solution? Thanks, Rivnik

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One or more of the spring steel clips in the edge of the hubcap are loose. The tips get worn down and the spring steel loses its spring. Seating the cap with little effort is the sign. On a new, tight hubcap you can barely bang the thing on!

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OK Rivnik: Are the spokes all tight? When you assemble them the tab in the center piece needs to face the hole for the valve stem. The spinners have the 4 longer screws, the centerpiece has the 8 shorter ones. The medallion should have no play in the spinner either. There's also a slot for alignment.

Sometimes you can take vice grips and tug at the end of the grippping tabs. If the thing is still creaking after all that use a spray of WD-40 and place the sprap rod end right in between the tab and the outer ring that butts against the rim. Mitch

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I retightened all the screws, cleaned up the pointy-springy tabs (which were quite rusty) with a wire brush Dremel tool. I grabbed and pulled out the tabs w V grips and straightened a couple that were a little bent. Then I put a liberal amount of lithium grease on the spring clips, making sure some got between the spring and hubcap rim. Then I made sure the cap was firmly seated all around the rim..... Quiet as a mouse!

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That did cross my mind for a sec.....I was thinking the contact points, being actual points, would have no real surface area for grease to act on, but now you've got me thinking again....I better go have another look see! Granpappy used to always say, "a squeaky hubcap on the car is worth two in the bush"...we had no idea what he was babbling about at the time

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