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MG MGB Technical - Alloy wheels and track rod ends.

Now the steering rack is in, I'm able to put my new Minator alloys on. Problem. The balance weights get knocked off by the track rod ends. Can I grind some of these away and can I get the wheels balanced by having the weights inboard a little? It looks as if I need a little off the track rod ends anyway as it's pretty close to the wheel rim even without weights. Or is there some way to bias the track rod end to slant back a bit? Hoo hum...just when I thought I could get all four wheels on the ground.
Steve Church

Steve,

I ground some to clear the wheels. Later someone glued balance weights on in a way that the weights were rubbed. I never went back to trying to correct that.

I think I remember that my tie rod end castings had what looked like a big square chunk of extra useless iron that was causing the problem. I don't know if yours are the same.

Charley
C R Huff

Steve,

Wheel ofset is more positive than it should. It is like you bought FWD wheel for your car. The easiest route is to buy 1/4" (1 cm)spacers, easy to find in all speedshop, to give clearance without stressing studs.

Cheers,

Jean G.

P.S. I dislike the idea to grind material from suspension-steering..
Jean Guy Catford

Steve

Years ago some of the alloy wheel internals were too big and rubbed the trackrod ends, so Moss sold a slimmer trackrod end to cope with it but i dont have a number for it.

Ste
Ste Brown

Thanks for the quick replies.

Jean, I don't like the idea of spacers. I've just measured the thread engagement and I have 9 turns which is about right. I don't fancy reducing that and I don't think I can put in longer studs.

Ste, I'll follow through on the slimmer rod end from Moss.

I reckon that if I grind away some of the housing I will have a few mm of clearance if I remove the weights. I don't know if they can use slimmer weights further inboard. Here's a picture of one side.


Steve Church

And the other.

Note both track rod ends are tilted forward.


Steve Church

I had that problem. Don't go grinding anything. Stick on weights can be put on well out of the way between the spokes. A good balancer won't have any problem with that.
Allan Reeling

Yes, I'll think I'll reconsider the grinding option. I may try a small spacer, say 3mm (Moss do 3 and 6mm) to see if that adds a bit more clearance. I don't think that will compromise the stud length too much. I ran a midget on Minators which only had a stud diameter's engagement for the wheel nut. I didn't have any wheels drop off!
Steve Church

Steve,

Your tie rod ends don't look the same as mine. It looks like they don't have the extra square chunk of iron that I ground off of mine.

Charley
C R Huff

Steve,

One thing I noticed from your photo is that you are not using nylock nuts to fasten your tie rod ends.

Nylock nuts are self locking nuts that won't work loose. They are normally supplied with new tie rod ends and should be available at any hardware store.

I just bought a couple of them to reinstall my ends after replacing the rack gaiters. They are a use once item and should be replaced with new ones.
Steven 67GT

Steve, I noticed that too. I re-used the original nut and wondered why there was no lock washer. I shall replace with a nyloc. Any idea of what sized thread it is?
Steve Church

Steve
You could use the hammer on type wheel weights that go on the lip of the rim - looking at your pics they would clear the rodends without a problem
Willy
William Revit

Just a curious side question, but do all aluminum after market wheels wind up that close to tie-rod? I was quite surprised seeing the photos and how easy it is for the weights to be knocked off. It sure doesn't look to be much clearance. Of course I've not compared this to stock rostyle wheels.

It is just surprising to see the tie-rod and wheel so close.
R.W Anderson

RW,

I don't know if it is all alloy wheels, but here is a pic of the backside of one of my Minators from my BGT. The rub line was there when I got the car, and when I found it I ground the extra lump off of the tie rod. Later, I had them balanced and forgot to mention that there wasn't much clearance, so the lead got rubbed.

Charley


C R Huff

Sounds like the slimmer trackrods were made for the minitors when people stared complaining about this.
Ste Brown

The hammer on weights are not an option for alloy wheels. The area, where the weight is mounted, is too thick and pushes the tire bead away from the edge of the rim. I bought a new set of Minators, last Summer, and the place that mounted them used those weights. The next morning, all 4 tires were flat. RAY
rjm RAY

Steve,

I suppose you bought wider Mag whells + positive offset causing that clearance problem. I dislike that lack of clearance with tie-rod end as tie-rod's ball is not free from moving in their socket. i.e: rubbing on wheel anyway. I am surprise tires did not rubbed on frame when cramping steering..

I have a solution other than change wheels, but you will not like it! An idea if you want to have full sud bolting is to buy spacers of this type:

https://uswheeladapters.com/Home_Page.php



Cheers
Jean Guy Catford

I spoke to MGOC technical yesterday. They say this is not uncommon and offer a track rod end with a smaller housing. Part number GSJ168Q. Brown and Gammon also do one, GSJ168A (they have a pic so you can see the difference). I shall pick some up this week. At least the old track rod ends have come off easily.

I did try a 3mm spacer yesterday. Not enough clearance. I may try a 6mm one just to complete the exercise, but feel this is too thick for proper wheel nut engagement.

Jean, the wheels are the standard Minator copies 5J rim width. I bought them second hand with a few hundred miles on them. They were unmarked with no evidence of weights having been knocked off before so assume the previous owner had no clearance problems.
Steve Church

Fortunately my daily driver doesn't justify spending funds for aluminum wheels, too many other things requiring funds first.

Unfortunately my daily driver does have 1 or 2 slightly out of round wheels.

So I've been considering a set of used aluminum wheels if the price were right. Now I'm putting this consideration further to the back shelf, given the potential complication I may introduce with aluminum wheels.

I've read before that some other cars like Saab, or was it some of the Toyotas or Datsuns, had aluminum wheels that the lug spacing matched rostyle. Any knowledged out there if these wheels resulted in the same tie-rod end space problem?
R.W Anderson

I had the same issue with the Minators on my 1972 Midget. When I bought new tires at TireRack, I marked one of the rims with painter's tape to show them the area where weights should not be mounted. When I picked up the rims, they had weights in all the wrong places. I talked to the guy who did the balancing and explained the issue. He immediately removed the weights and re-balanced the wheels, carefully avoiding the problem area. Worked great.
David "at least Minators are easier to have balanced than RO-Styles" Lieb
David Lieb

Don't understand why this is an issue.
As has been suggested, move the weights away from the track rod path. That's the nice thing about stick-on weights.

It is actually preferable that the weights be on the wheel center line anyway, as it avoids setting up dynamic imbalance. Quality modern tires with good wheels rarely need dynamic correction, so why add such errors? My best wheels/tires have no weights at all and are perfect, and several sets I bought had the weights at the center line.

Or use hammer on weights MADE FOR alloy wheels. I have several sets of Mazda & BMW wheels with such weights and they don't even lose 1psi in a year (measured at constant temperature) with good tires. No correctly mounted tire will be affected by hammer on weights anyway, since they seal on the diameter of the bead seat, not the side flanges.

On cars where the rod end is inside the rim diameter, clearance is controlled by wheel diameter plus rim thickness, so cast alloy wheels tend to have a bit less clearance due to the thickness.

Ill made rod ends can always get you, but given round wheels and good bearings, you only need about .015 minimum clearance. If the ends basically fit, you can easily knock way more than .015 off the rod end with a file by just taking off the roughness at the corner.

FRM
FR Millmore

... and in closing!

In reference to the comment above, "at least Minators are easier to have balanced than RO-Styles"...

I managed to talk my local Discount Tire store (Stillwater, MN) into stocking all the various lug adapters, so that my RO-style wheels can be easily balanced by lug instead of hub.

There is still a problem in having the right adapters for wire wheels though.
R.W Anderson

I have the slimmer version now which I obtained from MGOC. For those wanting to do the same they are a QH part. Part number QR1153S. Your local motor factors probably stock it at a cheaper price. The housing would clear the weights but the boot will not.
Steve Church

Can't, for the life of me, see why this thread has been so long winded.
TELL the balncer where he can't put the weights. If he says he can't, it's because he can't be bothered!!
Go somewhere else!!!
Allan Reeling

Allan,

Some tie rod ends drag the inside of the wheels even if there are no weights involved. Mine did with a set of Minators and no weights. See my pic from my previous post in this long winded thread. The scar around the wheel has nothing to do with weights.

Steve,

Thanks for the part numbers. I have copied and pasted your last post.

Charley
C R Huff

This thread was discussed between 13/03/2011 and 20/03/2011

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