Page Seventy-Three - A Huge Steaming Pile of Mistakes

 

Where to begin?  What follows started with a stuck knock-off spinner, on the left front, the spinner with very expensive new chrome on it…

I noticed a pronounced grinding on one of Alphie’s little outings – he has 2 new miles on his little odometer.  After investigating the situation, I discovered that the front left wheel was loose, so I went to remove the spinner with my homemade wooden spinner wrench.  It wouldn’t budge.  More force, you say, sure, and I broke it, the wooden wrench, not the spinner.

I tried soft hammers, a dead-blow mallet, my small sledge hammer with a chunk of hard wood, no direct sledge to spinner contact, nothing.  I made another wooden spinner wrench, which I thought was stronger, broke it too.  Various levels of depression and despondence.

Next thought, apply some heat, not with a torch but with my heat gun (a hair dryer on steroids), a Teflon hammer between my small sledge and the spinner.  This time it budged and off it came, phew!

Mistake One: (There are a pile of mistakes, but we’ll just call this one mistake #1.) The grinding was between the wheel’s inner hub and the disk brake caliper.  Not knowing that the backspacing was the problem, I thought,"Simple enough, I’ll grind off a bit of the caliper for some extra clearance…" HUGE MISTAKE.  I of course took too much metal off and ground through the caliper.  

You’re right, a smart man would have thought, “but the caliper wasn’t in the way of the original wheels, why would it be in the way of these?”  “Smart” wouldn't show up for a while yet.  No worries, I’ll weld up the hole, dress the weld a bit and no one will know.  More on this in a minute

I started thinking about how to give the caliper more clearance because grinding the caliper backfired so spectacularly.   I tried adding some washers to the back of the caliper to move it back towards the disk a bit – that bound it against the disk, and the wheel would turn at all.  I tried the washers between the brake disk and wheel adapter to push the adapter out a bit – that also bound the disk to the caliper, and the wheel wouldn’t move.

Next, I tried a shim on the adapter to push the wheel out some.  When I put the wheel on, I noticed that the wheel never touched the shim.  Hmmmmm…

A feeling started sinking, much like the Titanic.

Mistake Two: I had made this mistake about a year ago, when I bought the wire wheels.  A smart man would have compared the backspacing of the original to the new wheels.  If he had, he would have noticed that the wheels I ordered were for a Triumph Spitfire, which needs lots-o-backspace, unlike a Sunbeam Alpine.

My backspace problem - the wheel of the left is the original
(Looks pretty good right?  It's not very round however.)
The one on the right has A LOT more backspace, way too much!

To be absolutely fair, British Wire Wheels has a set that they say, right there in the catalog, are for Sunbeam Alpines.  A smart man would have ordered THOSE wheels because they have the correct backspacing.  Not me, I thought the ones for a Spitfire would be better since they were a bit wider… More on this in a minute.

Mistake Three: With a hole in the caliper weeping brake fluid, I removed the caliper, stripped it of all the new parts and tried welding the holes, yeah, more than one.  It was a valiant effort involving a lot of MIG wire, but though I filled the hole, I couldn’t seal it enough to keep the brake fluid in.  I would weld it up and think I had it, then I would pour in a bit of mineral spirits to check, and it would leak through the welds.  I repeated this routine several times and soon understood it probably would never seal.  Found a towel; threw it in.

Fortunately, I have another front left caliper from the Organ Donor (remember him?) that is caked in rust, but working with embarrassed fury, I was able to clean it, paint it and swap the new seals and piston from the caliper I destroyed, I got it back together.

The Organ Donor's left front caliper - copious WD40 later

Do NOT Do This!
One destroyed caliper

The backside of Do Not Do This!

After all that, I'm back to where I started  
with one working front left caliper.

What to do about the wrong wheels?

Truth is, I can’t fix the wheels.  I have to order two new ones with the correct backspacing and eat the expense.

I can’t in good conscience ask the folks at Classic Car Performance (who sell British Wire Wheels) to take back a set of wheels that have tires mounted and balanced, especially when it’s all my fault for not reading what they were trying to tell me and COMPLETELY missing the backspacing issue.

Fortunately, and it’s a small dispensation, the back wheels work even with the extra backspace.  They butt against the brake drum, and the splines engage the adapter, so they are snug and secure.  No rubbing.

The fronts, however, will never work.

Mistakes on Mistakes

I have made mistakes with Alphie before – remember, I had to paint him twice - but somehow this one is more embarrassing because I should have, and actually did, know better, but I merrily screwed up anyway.  This one will cost me somewhere north of $1,000 bucks.  Not only the price of two new wheels but swapping the tires and rebalancing them, the cost of being the Chief Bonehead in Charge!

I'll get back to you once I've ordered the correct wheels.