Aluminum vs stainless steel wheel spinners

[chopper]

OK, I need some adult supervision here. The last time I had the wheels off my car was the about three months ago when I pulled the rear end to replace the seals and output shaft bearings. Note that I have the aluminum pin-drive wheels with aluminum spinners. When I reassembled the car after that maintenance, I used copious amounts of anti-seize on the threads and the mating surface between the spinners and the wheels. I tightened each spinner with two or three whacks of my dead-blow hammer and safety wired the spinners to the wheels. As part of the routine maintenance, I also pulled the fronts and lubricated them at the same time. This is just as I've done on the car for the past six years.

Last weekend, I decided to perform some relatively minor maintenance on the car, which required pulling of the left rear wheel. When I tried to remove the spinner, I found it frozen. The removal odyssey then began. I retrieved my FinishLine spinner tool and tried to use that, only to find that with the car sitting on the epoxy-painted floor and the wife holding the brake pedal as firmly as she could, I only succeeded in rotating the entire wheel assembly. I then pushed the car onto the street where I could get a better grip between the tire and the asphalt. I pushed the steel bar midway through the tool and supported the outer end of the tool with a jackstand. With my neighbor sitting in the car holding the brakes, and both his wife and mine standing on one side of the bar, I pushed up on the other end with my floor jack and was finally able to get the spinner to break loose. As a precaution, I checked the other three wheels and found all of them frozen. Each eventually came loose using similar tactics, although the left rear was the worst of the lot. In the process, we bent the steel rod enough that I was unable to extract it from the tool. A buddy from work took the tool, with bar still attached, to his home shop, cut the bar off on both sides of the tool, and pounded it out with a three-pound mallet.

Visual inspection of the spinners showed a small area of galling, about 1/16 inch wide and maybe an inch long, on the mating surface of the spinners. This led to a little research, with somewhat confused results. As a result, I have two questions to pose to this distinguished assemblage. First, why did the spinner apparently weld itself to the wheel when it seemed to be properly lubricated? Second, and more important, will switching from aluminum spinners to stainless steel spinners eliminate the galling and/or welding problem? I’d hate to have a flat somewhere in the middle of East Camel’s Breath, Arizona and find the spinners frozen again.

By the way, I have to offer kudos to Enzo and his spinner tool. Without that tool, I think the only option would have been to cut the spinners off the hub. I’m now looking for a hardened steel bar for the next usage.

[Rick Bagley]

You have just outlined the drawback of using Aluminum Spinners. I have never seen a set of Stainless Spinners do that but have heard the aluminum story before. It's just the aluminum, on and off, under a load.

[Excaliber]

Friend of mine just broke the ear off his aluminum spinner (SPF) trying to get the wheel off.

He called SPF and apparently it was a known issue. There sending him the "new" style knock offs, but not sure what their made of yet.

Ernie

[Lowell W]

Yeah, aluminum is a poor bearing surface and aluminum on aluminum is very prone to galling. My understanding (from talking with a tool & diemaker with 60+ years' experience) is that any metal will gall when bearing against a piece of the same metal, some worse than others. Apparently, the way to avoid galling is to use adequate lubrication (anti-sieze); the way to prevent it is to make both pieces from dissimilar metals. Stainless spinners sound like a good idea: Does anyone know of a source for SS spinners for SPF cars? For aluminum spinners on aluminum wheels, it's probably a good idea to take 'em off, lube 'em up and replace 'em several times a year.

[Bob In Ct]

My own experience is that a couple of taps of the lead hammer removes mine with ease. Remember, they don't have to be super duper tight going on. I just snug them up. The pins carry the load, not the spinner. Use heavy safety wire as an early warning system. If the wire gets tight, the spinner is unwinding.

Bob

[Randy Rosenberg]

Lowell,

I purchased some very nice SS Spinners for my Trigos from George Petrus at Accurate Machine Products - http://www.cobraracing.com/index.html

You should call to see if he can make them to fit SPF wheels (vs. Trigos).

Good luck,
Randy R...

[Lowell W]

Thanks, Randy: I'll give George a call.

[DonC]

Has anyone explored the possibility of using a thin washer of stainless steel machined to the proper dimentions between the spinner and the wheel? I would think this would probably be less expensive than a stainless steel spinner and serve the same purpose of isolating similar metals.
DonC

[SPF604]

I think Bob in CT is right, just take the weight off the wheel, tap an ear on the spinner twice with a lead hammer and rotate and tap the next ear, continue around the spinner until it loosens. I usually put an index mark on my wheel and spinner with a #2 soft pencil. Rubs right off and makes an easy indicator for the first movement of the spinner. I put mine back on with a dead blow rather than a lead hammer.

[Rick Parker]

DonC:

I think the idea of the washer merits investigation. For those with the aluminum knock offs it would certainly appear to be a cost effective alternative. This is thinking "Outside the Box".

Rick

[Lowell W]

Re. the SS washer: good idea but the mating surface between the spinner and the wheel is tapered. Casting a SS bearing piece into the spinners would use the same idea ans should be possible-put the SS "washer" into the mold (die) and cast the aluminum around it...

[foothills gary]

I have been thinking about this dilema,and was wondering if a nylon washer would be a possibility,used one time and cheap to replace.It would be readily deformable to match the mating surfaces,and I think should hold tight without too much force.Has anyone tried this option?

[Jack21]

I wouldn't use aluminum for a spinner that held the wheel in place, period. British cars with spinner mounted wire wheels way back when were chrome plated brass If I recall.

Aluminum is fine for decorative spinners, where the wheel is held on by lug nuts.

To prevent the galling you describe, either use the stainless washer between the two surfaces, or make (or find a source for) stainless spinners.

[chopper]

To all who ventured opinions on this subject, I would like to say I appreciate your inputs. The short version is that I called Enzo and ordered a set of stainless spinners Friday; he promised they'd be here by the middle of the week. I expect that to resolve the problem.

In my own defense, I did lubricate the threads and spinner-to-wheel surface with large amounts of anti-seize compound. I have always kept these things lubricated, and usually have them off and back on at least every three months or so, even though I don't get the chance to drive the car as much as I'd like. Each time I remounted the wheels, I used the same procedure. However, I note that each time it seemed to be a little more difficult to break them free, and it eventually culminated in the situation described in the beginning of the thread. I don't know why they attached so firmly on this particular occasion; I'm just glad I discovered it in my garage rather than 59 miles outside of Phoenix.

A couple of observations follow; again, I want to make it clear that I appreciate everyone's input on this. I talked with a couple of folks who are metallurgists by education and vocation, and the bottom line from those individuals was that aluminum on aluminum will eventually lead to galling and spot-welding of the two surfaces under tightening load. Both advised me that once the galling has started, it will gradually progress each time the spinner is tightened onto the wheel. One ventured the option of having the mating surfaces of the spinners and wheels resurfaced to remove the small pits resulting from (and causing) the galling; the other felt that was merely a short-term fix and recommended switching to another material.

My experience was the same as Bob in CT and SPF604 up until the past year or so. In fact, I have expressed my opinion on this subject in previous posts and have said (in agreement with you) that you don't have to beat the spinners on like a gorilla to get them to stay put. I normally would put the wheels on, tighten the spinner with a couple of taps with a dead-blow hammer to seat the wheel on the spindle, then lower the car to the ground and give each ear of the spinner a moderate whack with the hammer to tighten the spinner. I then safety wired one ear to the wheel. Using this procedure, I've never had any of the spinners loosen up, and they usually came off with a couple of good-sized whacks with the hammer. One previous experience about a year ago led me to order the tool from Enzo; without it, I'm sure the spinners would still be welded to the wheels. I did some rough calculations on the amount of torque applied to the spinner at the time it finally broke free. With the two ladies standing on the bar and me applying upward force on the other end with a floor jack, I figure the total torque on the spinner was in excess of 450 ft-lbs at the time it broke free. With all due respect, I'm pretty sure "a couple of taps with a lead hammer" would have been inadequate to loosen these things.

Other folks have posted stories of spinners coming loose at speed, resulting in loosing the attached wheel at some rather inappropriate times. I believe them; that's why these thing were banned on the racing circuits. Why they had spinners which wouldn't stay put and others have spinners that won't come off, I can't explain.

I think Rick Parker has a good idea with the SS washer; however, as Lowell pointed out, the tapered mating surface between the spinner and wheel makes that a bit difficult. What would be really nice would be for the wheel manufacturers to bond or press a stainless steel race into the wheel to take the load of the spinners. However, that still doesn't resolve the whole problem, since the aluminum spinner still threads onto a steel spindle. This sets up galvanic corrosion due to the dissimilar metals, and over time will still result in difficulty removing the spinners. I finally came to the conclusion that the only real solution was to go with stainless spinners, and that's what I've done.

Again, I thank everyone for their inputs. Perhaps this will serve as a lesson so that others will be able to avoid this problem. As my old CO used to say, you can be part of the solution or you can serve as a terrible example. Either way, we all contribute.

[Randy Rosenberg]

Hey Chopper,

Thanks for your research and your post...

The one con to SS spinners is weight - I haven't weighed my spinners, but my SS spinners are definitely heavier that my Aluminum ones.

I'm not an expert, but I've heard many talk about "un-sprung weight", and that adding SS spinners only adds to the "un-sprung weight", which I believe is not good - from a racing/handling point of view.

For this reason alone, I use my SS spinners when I have my street tires/Trigos mounted, and I use my Aluminum spinners when I have my slicks/Trigos mounted. I'm lucky to have two set of Trigos

Last, I use a copper based anti-seize compound - maybe this helps with the "dis-similar" metal contact, as I've only had one problem when removing my spinners, and I attribute that to someone else knocking on my spinners one time.

Again, thanks for your research - this is really helpful.

Regards,
Randy R...