Where to get original GTV wheels, and fitting.

[poohbah]

2 Alfas and a Beetle. Your other half must be very understanding.

[ugame]

2 Alfas and a Beetle. Your other half must be very understanding.

Up until last weekend, I had 3 Alfa's and a beetle.

I think the meds are working now though

[poohbah]

 

[ugame]

...and now I'm waiting on Auto1 who have just ordered me 20 new wheel bolts with a thread length of 37mm as the ones that were used for the 17" wheels where only a 24mm thread and are no way long enough to give a decent bite once clear of the original GTV 16" wheel.

Simple wheel change job on hold lol.

Only $6 each which I thought was very reasonable.

So now I guess I'll ask Chileberti's to order in the locating lugs given I have to wait for bolts anyway.

Do it once. Do it right!

(Well my original plan was "just do it this weekend" but meh lol)

[ugame]

btw I hope it's ok, but I have changed the title of this thread as this in no way has been about wreckers lol.

I'll start another Wreckers thread to keep things neat.

[poohbah]

How frustrating is that? What should be a simple 30min job ends up taking hours/days/weeks while you wait for bits. If you don't want to wait, you could call one of the Gumtree guys parting cars and see if you can get some wheel nuts this weekend.

Or try Oxford Spares in leederville. I managed to get a sealed beam headlight for my 81 GTV straight off the shelf there last week. I reckon they would be a chance to have the bolts in stock.

[ugame]

How frustrating is that? What should be a simple 30min job ends up taking hours/days/weeks while you wait for bits. If you don't want to wait, you could call one of the Gumtree guys parting cars and see if you can get some wheel nuts this weekend.

Or try Oxford Spares in leederville. I managed to get a sealed beam headlight for my 81 GTV straight off the shelf there last week. I reckon they would be a chance to have the bolts in stock.

Na it's all good. They've been ordered now so I'll just wait and use the time to get those locator lugs too.

Then at least it's all done right.

Gave me today to work in the garden some more at least, coz you know, that's fun too  lol

[ugame]

Fitted the new wheels and tyres today with one of my kids. Actually he changed 3 of the 4 with my guidance. Great bonding time.



Here's a short vid I made to explain the importance of bolt length depending on wheel design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1ftX-AdwpQ

[poohbah]

Good stuff mate. No question, original rims look so much better.

[ugame]

Good stuff mate. No question, original rims look so much better.

Cheers mate and I agree 100%.

All vibrations gone

but......

I can still hear a faint "dugga dugga" in time with wheel rotation ggggrrrrrrrr

The wheel shop has etched the word "back" in the dirt on one of my wheels and that one had many weights on it.

So when I have time in the next few days, I'll take a wheel off the 147 (which produces no noises) and try it on each corner.

If that doesn't fix it, then it's something else

It's not bad and given there are no vibrations it's more annoying than a huge concern.

If it were a dry bearing or CV joint I'd expect vibration AND I would expect Chileberti would have picked it up. So it's either a bad balance, bad new tyre, or just something rubbing somewhere.

[poohbah]

Flat spot maybe? Or wheel balancing.

Teledials on my first 156 gave a small shudder whenever I was doing 95-100kph. Slightly out of round, and needed rerolling. But it was so slight I just put up with it.

[ugame]

shouldn't be a flat spot on brand new tyres.

Bad balance is my guess but we'll see.

PS: The word to the wife is "yes of course the new wheels and tyres fixed all my issues honey"

[ugame]

Another interesting thing on the 17's that I REMOVED from the car.....

on the back it states 2 possible 4 stud patters and 1 possible 5 stud pattern being......

5 x 100

Given they are a 5 stud pattern, either these were a custom 5x98 OR the last owner squeezed a set of 5x100's onto the alfa.

Not sure yet.

Will see if a local wheel shop can shed any light for me with a measuring tool or something.

If they are 5x100 then I guess that opens up potential future owners of the wheels.

not by many useful ones, but WRX is there in the list.
https://www.wheel-size.com/pcd/5x100/

[ugame]

"Dugga dugga" noise is pretty much gone now.

It was annoying me still on a backroad drive today so I thought I'd start simple.....

Stopped at a garage and checked the pressures as keep in mind these are fresh tyres and they fitted them to wheels NOT on the car so had nothing to go by for pressures.

They were all up at 42 PSI.

I dropped all 4 to 35 PSI which is what I run on the same tyres on my 147, and what I used to run on the 98 GTV.

The ride is INSTANTLY smoother, less road noise, and from what I can tell, no more noticeable dugga dugga.

Now I'm suspecting that there may still be a slight balance issue but that now it is being soaked up by the extra give in the rubber.

Meh....that's a fix as far as I am concerned.

Will continue to monitor.

[poohbah]

42 PSI is way higher than I ever run, 35 much more sensible. I generally have the 156 at 36.

Weirdly, the factory recommendation for my 81 GTV on 15" wheels is only 28. But that just seems too low to me, so I generally run them at 30-32.