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Post By Dan Case
11-06-2016, 06:58 AM
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Optional For Cobras American Racing Wheels
I responded to a wheel thread in another forum. I thought a version might be interesting to some folks in the Originality Forum.
Original 1960s wheels wise, American Racing published this advertisement. I have only seen it in old magazines twice. The wheels were made of a cast magnesium alloy.
Shelby American wise three versions are known, two “spline drive” versions used on works prepared street and race cars and one “pin drive” version was made for Ken Miles to use on CSX2431. Legend says that only two sets of pin drive wheels were made for Ken’s use, he used one set and they cracked because there just wasn’t enough strength around the pin holes, and the second set Ken didn’t use is said to have been obtained years later by a privateer Cobra racer.
Shelby American offered two similar “spline drive” mounting system design versions of these wheels for production street and race Cobras. They were a popular option. They were made with offsets appropriate for Cobras, clearance for their disc brake calipers, and extremely important clearance for steering arms/tie rod ends; both styles were sold on new cars. Both styles were offered in ½” width increments between at least 15X6 and 15X8.5 for Cobras. (American Racing offered 15X6.5 and up in their speed shop catalogs.) The 15X6 front wheels appear to be unique to Cobras and cleared the steering arms and their tie rod ends. (Most magnesium race wheels Shelby used on the front of Cobras required steering/steering arm modifications to get tie rod ends away from wheels.) A fairly common practice was to use 15X6 wheels in front and 15X7 wheels in the rear. If care was taken choosing tire sizes the owner might not have to enlarge the rear fenders for clearance.
The first version had a hidden splined steel adapter fixed to the wheel central hub with bolts threaded into blind holes in the magnesium. These wheels seemed to do okay with street and road racing use but had a problem develop during drag racing. People that have experienced the trouble first hand tell me that the threaded holes in the magnesium wallow out on rear wheels if used with drag racing. The holes enlarge, the adapters get loose, and the wheels get loose. The second design, often called the “drag wheel” design, and is so described in some old SAI parts lists, “bolt through” style adapter mounting. Now large bolts pass through the webs of the central wheel hub and magnesium wheel type lug nuts and washers clamp the wheel hub to fix the adapter in place. The second works Dragon Snake used them.
Front side of “road race” style 15X8.5 wheel.
Back side of “road race” style 15X8.5 wheel.
Front side of the “drag” race style 15X6 front wheel.
Back side of “drag” race style 15X6 front wheel.
I will mention that the American Racing Equipment spline drive magnesium wheels are not exactly light weight. An all steel 15X6 70 spoke (center laced) Dunlop painted wire wheel for a Cobra weighs in at an average of 23 pounds. The 15X6 drag style American Racing / Cobra wheel averages a little over 18 pounds I believe. The 15X6.5 six spoke Halibrand made pin drive wheels I weighed were around about 13-14 pounds if my memory is correct.
Other notes, early castings have hollow spokes and later ones have an extra rib added inside the rear of spokes.
For a while there was a vendor taking the modern aluminum American recreations of the curved spoke wheels being sold commercially and modifying them for Cobras. The wheels I looked at had been reworked by filling the standard bolt on lug holes, metal finishing to cosmetically hide that work had been done, the wheel remachined to used Cobra splined adapters, and Cobra style adapters added. Since the 1970s one shop has adapted not only American Racing five spoke wheels of several designs to original Cobras but several other brands of similar looking wheels.
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Dan Case
1964 Cobra owner since 1983, Cobra crazy since I saw my first one in the mid 1960s in Huntsville, AL.
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11-06-2016, 03:28 PM
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Nice info Dan, thanks!
Larry
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11-06-2016, 05:42 PM
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Location: Manchester,
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Cobra Make, Engine: AK1085 (302 Street), HTM111 (427 Comp), CSX2375R (289 Comp) and COB5999 (427 S/C)
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Dan
Great info, priceless info.,,,
Thank you
Jeff
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11-07-2016, 02:19 PM
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I suppose finding some would be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Love TTD's! Thanks for posting, Dan.
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11-07-2016, 03:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RodKnock
I suppose finding some would be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Love TTD's! Thanks for posting, Dan.
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Finding some and finding some most people would risk driving on are more or less different subjects. Based on experiences that I know about, one might have to buy two sets (10 wheels) or more to get five wheels matched wheels** that can be cosmetically restored on the outside and don’t have safety concerns*. I have known cases where an original car owner hunted down more than two sets to build one matched set to use on a restored car. Guess where the left overs of questionable “quality” or mixed revisions go, yep back into the market. When located these things, original 1960s made wheels that is, are usually not cheap no matter what they look like.
The best wheels condition wise come out of the desert south west generally. Some areas are so dry in climate that magnesium doesn’t corrode very fast. In regions where owners long ago drove on winter salt treated roads corrosion all over inside and out can be severe. In the southeast the humidity is so high year round that magnesium wheels can corrode a little bit to extremely pitted unless maintained and protected with some kind moisture blocking external treatment. Just washing them when a car is washed can be lots of trouble, see safety concerns.
*Safety concerns, including but not necessarily limited to:
1) Magnesium, castings can fail from deep inside the metal outward so just visually looking at the outside surfaces isn’t a qualified inspection.
2) Loose bolts, either wheel design, can very quickly wallow out holes machined into the magnesium.
3) Cracks. I bought a pair of wheels that had tires installed and then removed without the wheels ever being mounted on the Cobra they were intended for long ago. They looked like new old stock wheels (one is shown in the pictures I posted) but both were damaged by the tire changing equipment and one was cracked badly with a large crack leaving a wheel machine gripper bite mark.
4) Abuse. Hitting a curb can generate quite a bit of damage. Many wheels in use now have been remachined to remove any hint of a damaged outer lip the wheels originally had. Hammer blows, knock off nut wings are rear close to spokes so it is easy to bash spokes. Sharp dents in magnesium anything is not desirable because they are places for stresses to concentrate. Modifications, yes some people have made physical changes to wheels. Some home grown modifications are scary looking at best.
5) Corrosion.
5a) What you can see in use. As mentioned before these wheels can be subject to corrosion so severe they will have craters in some to all surfaces from tiny to big enough to hold something like a marble. Every corrosion pit is a place cracks can start and bigger pits are bigger dangers. Grinding the surfaces to just cosmetically remove the signs of neglect and abuse doesn’t address any corrosion that went deeper.
5b) What you cannot see in use.
5b.1) Just any old tire mounting lubricant solution is not a good idea for magnesium wheels. Some might be okay but some can start very undesirable corrosion hidden by a tire. Special lubricant made to use with magnesium wheels is a real good idea.
5b.2) Water and anything dissolved in that water is a bad idea between inner tubes and tire beads and magnesium wheels. Many of the tires used in the 1960s were tube type tires. The stems of inner tubes have grooves in them for trapped air to escape as the inner tube is inflated inside a tire. Those vent grooves are two way paths, not only can air escape but anything around them can pass into the wheel inner tube interface. As an example, consider a set of wheels removed from a car that had been stored for decades. The car was stored in a nice dry place so the exterior of the wheels were in excellent condition lack of corrosion wise. Unfortunately when the car was being prepared for sale it was pressure washed every where the person doing the washing could get the wash wand. Apparently the person blasting the car managed to hit the vent grooves in a couple of inner tube stems. The car changed hands and went into storage again. When new owner finally decided he didn’t want magnesium wheels he had the tires and tubes removed to make shipping them to a buyer easier. Two wheels were dry inside and two wheels were soaked inside. The two dry wheels were excellent in lack of corrosion sense. The two wet wheels had severe fresh oozing corrosion by-products everywhere the water wicked to and that was in most places. Pits were so large and deep in places you could have measured them with a pocket scale. Results, two of four wheels were damaged badly by a combination of careless washing and return to storage.
6) Worn or damaged splined adapters. Adapters used on rear wheels in competition can become worn so much that little of the internal splines exist anymore. This creates concerns about potentially losing a wheel while in motion and or damaging the rear axle hub.
** Match sets. When I was trying to come up with a GOOD and MATCHED set of wheels one wheel purchase at a time I ran into a problem I had not expected and that was I discovered different versions. I found different versions of the base castings and I found variations in the way castings were machined. I wanted five 15X6 wheels that were all the same. I never completed a set. I found pairs of wheels that matched but I failed to find five that looked identical lying out on floor together. I collected wheels for decades and decided buying them one at a time wasn’t going to work for my plans. When I bought a car converted to pin drive configuration I traded off all the odd wheels and pairs of wheels that I collected.
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Dan Case
1964 Cobra owner since 1983, Cobra crazy since I saw my first one in the mid 1960s in Huntsville, AL.
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11-07-2016, 03:45 PM
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Dan, were you ever able to find a set of mag (or alloy) TTD's for your Cobra, that were acceptable, of course?
I was an amateur collector/buyer/seller of alloy original TTD's for early Corvettes and Porsches many years ago. I finally gave up and sold them all. At the time, there were a handful of dealers hoarding them around the country. Of course, there's certainly no comparison in terms of rarity, Corvette vs. Cobra, but I know "the wheel fever" quite well.
And I still have 2 sets of "rare" (it's all relative) wheels in garage for my air-cooled P-car. It's an obsession.
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11-07-2016, 05:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RodKnock
Dan, were you ever able to find a set of mag (or alloy) TTD's for your Cobra, that were acceptable, of course?
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No. I was never the lucky one to find wheels before the wheeler dealers got them. I missed a new old stock set of five each 15X6 circa 1984. They were advertised in print and unfortunately I was the second caller. They sold cheaper than a set of common aluminum wheels for a daily driver. The man bought a new Cobra, then bought the wheels, and then decided not to use them. New in the box wheels two decades old at the time, wow.
Friends of mine have spent vulgar amounts for excellent sets, often buying multiple sets to get good ones. I read a magazine interview where somebody bought six sets to get one set that looked good and passed non-destructive testing. The only reason they stepped up and paid the price was the cars they had were originally sold with them new. One person tracked down the set removed from his car long ago but the current user has no interest in reuniting the wheels to the car they came new on. My black car didn’t come with magnesium wheels so my interest in paying insane amounts for used decades old magnesium wheels that might have undisclosed issues was not very strong. I gave up in 2013 and traded off all the wheels. I do have some left over “drag” wheel steel hardware sets. (I tried to get American Racing interested in making a run of aluminum wheels. I offered the best wheel assembly I had, the nearly new 15X6 shown in the pictures, as a holotype. The answer was no. I checked on having a mold made for just the wheels. The lowest estimate years ago now was $38,000 for the mold, not counting machining, testing for DOT approval, or any adapter hardware, or the per wheel cost. Dead end for my budget.)
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Dan Case
1964 Cobra owner since 1983, Cobra crazy since I saw my first one in the mid 1960s in Huntsville, AL.
Last edited by Dan Case; 11-08-2016 at 08:38 AM..
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11-10-2016, 07:38 AM
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This is great information... Now whenever the hecklers at the local cruise-ins point out my car's lug nuts and fake spinner caps as incorrect, I can simply say:
"I'm emulating the look of spline drive hubs... Now please get outa here, and go criticize someone else's car... "
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- Robert
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