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Old 03-21-2007, 06:38 PM   #29
jon_s
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: London
Posts: 3,381
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There is a full write up on Walish, but this is what it says [p.s more pics from the bodyshop are up too]

"As always, things don't run quite as smoothly as I would like. I don't think I am fussy, but problems like the one I am about to outline are a bit of a pain to deal with.

Ok, so what I am jabbering on about. Let me start at the beginning. I rang the very helpful and knowledgeable people over at BMTR (see link above) to order my center caps. No problem, brushed alloy thank you very much.

Two minutes later I get an email asking me to call him back. A bit odd, but fair enough. Now, are you sitting down for this one? I am glad I was! Luckily, I had supplied photos of the wheels and the serial number on the box. When David from BMTR read this out to the bloke at Speedline (while ordering the caps) he knew exactly what wheels they were! Very strange considering they all look alike to me.

It transpires that in 2003, this very chap from Speedline took an order for 200 sets of wheels for a one off race series (based around the Ford Focus). However, the race series fell through and 200 sets of wheels flooded the market.

As they are a race wheel, the central hole does not have a recess for the caps to sit in, therefore they will not fit my wheels.

A shame but by no means the end of the world. Well, not the end of the world if that was the only problem - but oooh no there is more.

As is it a requirement for race cars to be equipped with 14mm studs, wheels I have were made to accommodate that. Now the problem is, my car, along with ever other road going Fiesta/Focus has 12mm studs. Therefore as things stand, the wheels are useless. Not only that, as far as I am aware, the wheels will not fit any other road going car in the UK - which by my calculation makes them worthless in the general market.

Solution?

Well, there is a solution, but it is a fairly big decision to make. I can convert my front hubs to accept 14mm studs. It involves drilling them out and sourcing studs from a suitable car. The last resort would be to have studs made up.

There seems to be little point throwing money at converting my rear hubs with the drum brakes to 14mm, therefore I would have to bring forward my rear disc conversion. There is an obvious cost factor in this!

Once I have done this, my wheels should fit. I have asked David from BMTR to give me the name and contact details of his chap at Speedline, as I want to check a few details before I venture down this route.

Drawbacks?

There are a few. The most obvious one is that going down this route means that I not only have custom wheels, I also have custom hubs. Meaning that not only would OZ wheels be out of the equation, the Fox range of wheels I so easily dismissed would also be out of the question! If I damaged a wheel beyond repair I would be searching for a needle in a hay stack to find a replacement. I would have to replace all the wheels and revert back to the standard hubs. This would also cost money as for obvious reasons, you can convert 12mm into 14mm, but you can't go from 14mm to 12mm!

Oh, finally, it may also be possible to have a company mill out the small recess to accept the center caps. That is assuming I understood him correctly on that point. I have to admit, I was slightly distracted when he moved onto the second point.

Is it worth selling?

Probably not. I have probably shot myself in the foot by disclosing all this, as I could have easily just put them up on ebay and not said anything. However, I am an honest chap and given my profession, that would not be advisable.

Anyway. I am not making any rash decisions. I will pick my car up and then decide what to do.

I fully expected to have to deal with this kind of problem when I was doing the engine conversion, but I was not expecting to have to solve this kind of thing on something as simple as wheel selection!

On a brighter note, while I have been typing this, new pics from the bodyshop have been downloading. "
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