Spigot Rings?

February 5, 2008

Hi all,

My mate at work has got me all paranoid... we we're talking cars a couple of weeks back and I was on about my new alloys. He mentioned when he had new wheels fitted on his Supra he had to have poly carbon (or something) heavy duty plastic spigot rings fitted to transfer weight to the centre bore of the wheel to the hub.

My new OZ SuperTurismo GT's came with some flimsy looking plastic rings for this purpose (but I guess they were just there to make lining the wheel up easier when fitting it), but one has been lost somewhere along the lines, possibly during a service or wheel balancing episode etc.

Anyway, he sent me a link to this thread which has got me a bit worried because I do get some vibration at speed which I'd simply put down to the crappy budget tyres I had fitted to my OZ's (which I instantly regretted) and now I'm wondering if I should have some proper heavy duty spigot rings on these wheels too. I guess lots of people on here will have after market wheels with a centre bore larger than the hub middle sticky outty bit, so does anyone else have spigot rings fitted?

BTW mine's a Gen7 VVTL-i 190, OZ's are 17".

Here's the link...

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=139454

February 5, 2008

Could be the cause of your vibration. Maybe move some wheels around, see if the vibration moves with them...? Maybe just buy yourself a new spiggot - at maybe a tenner, you're not losing much money for putting things to how the should be, and certainly easier than moving wheels around on the car!!

My OZ's came with nice shiney metal ones, btw! Don't know if that was curtiousy of OZ, or POTN...

February 6, 2008

interesting thread that, thanks for linking it up :)

I know of people who have run alloys without spoigot rings for years with no problems, maybe it creates problems on some cars more than others?

February 8, 2008

Bit more information... I looked on eBay for OZ fitting kits, and found nothing, then I stumbled across some guys website... Ronnie Cowan. I phoned him up and we had a chat about the situation. He told me that all OZ wheels come with a fitting kit that consists of four alloy spigot rings that are held into the centre bore by a circlip. He said that OZ distribute them as sets of four only, with 16 or 20 wheel nuts depending upon the wheel part number, and that they could not be bought separately.

He said that the ones in my wheels would definitely be metal (not plastic as I thought... I'd only glanced them once when the wheels were being fitted, so I guess from a distance they just looked like shiny silver plastic) and that he was surprised one had gone missing because they're held in by these circlips.

He suggested that you can run without them, but you'd be better off moving whatever wheel is missing the ring to the rear. He also said (contrary to what a Toyota Technie told me) that the wheel bolts alone will not pull the wheel to centre despite them being kind of cone shaped and that he was talking "rubbish" which sadly did not surprise me :huh:

Anyway, the bad news is that the kits are £45 + VAT and £12 shipping (because of their weight) which to me seems a lot for just needing to replace one. But, if it stops the vibration I'm getting and potentially saves me from the perils of sheared wheel studs - see here - http://planetsoarer.com/offset/studs.htm then its money well spent!

The guy's site is - http://www.ronniecowan.co.uk/OZ%20Alloys%20page.html

February 8, 2008

I work just down the road from Ronnie's place... He knows what he is talking about and he has given you the correct information, the wheel studs/nuts will NOT centre the wheel on the hub, even if they are as little as 1/2 a mm out you WILL get vibration (like wheel balance being out) the rings hold the wheel centre and prevent the vibration.

If you don;t want to pay the price he is asking, you could ask at an engineering shop to make you a set up.. as for price on this.. no idea.