Bolt-on wheel centres

[skelteanema]

Hi all,

Someone in NZ is selling a bunch of bolt-on wheel centres for Lotus elan steel wheels. They look original but I am not sure how you use these. Can you get rims and attach these to them, and by what means? Can you replace existing centres with these and is it and easy job? I suppose the question I am asking is are they worth purchasing (all seven are going for about GBP15 to 20). I have bolt on steel wheels with these types of centres, so these may make useful spares if they are realistically use-able.

Skittle

[elanfan1]

My thought process would make me ask why someone would have so many wheel centres and the only reasonable answer I can come up with is that the rims themselves must have been badly damaged. This being the case you'd wonder how straight they are, if they are cracked etc. I believe there are 13" 4.5J rims available but how cheap they'd be to make it economic I don't know. Nether do I know how good the welding needs to be for them to be safe.

[rgh0]

I believe the ID of currently available rims is slightly different from the OD of the original Lotus centres so you may struggle to fit these centres if original to new rims but they could be used to replace cracked centres ( yes the do crack) on original OK rims.

On my 68 Elan the centres were riveted to the rims.

You want to check the centres thickness and OD versus the originals. As the ones made some years ago in Australia were thicker steel to resist cracking and a slightly larger OD to fit modern rims ID i believe.

cheers
Rohan

[reb53]

PM me Skittle, pretty sure I have his number somewhere and I'm sure he wouldn't mind a phone call.
He had a 26R clone that he used to enter into the Targa, now has an original Elite.
Proper Lotus guy.

Ralph.

[Maulden7]

Having had an original riveted rear wheel fail on me when cornering hard on a sprint event (the rim departed the car with the tyre attached leaving the centre fixed to the hub) I wouldn't use those steel wheels for anything other than parking, & certainly not a welded centre on a rim.

Fortunately it was a heavy right hand turn with grass on the inside, & the o/s wheel that failed as I hit the apex. I felt a slight vibration for a couple of seconds, but before I could think wtf is that, I was pitched at 90 degrees onto the grass, the rear strut bottom dug in & ploughed a furrow, & I came to a halt with no other damage apart from a tyre mark on the paint where the rear o/s wing swiped the errant tyre etc as it passed by!