When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Wow, these wire hubcaps are noisy. It sounds like there is something loose in the brake drum, I jack the wheels off the ground and spin them and its quiet, drive slow and creak creak creak. I pull the wheel covers and the sound is gone. How can these have survived the last 50 years making that sound?
You may have a wheel bearing going bad, and the hubcap is amplifying the sound?
Nope, I just did all new brakes and inner and outer wheel bearings. Totally quiet without the wheel covers. I'm going to try swapping them around.
Thanks though.
It certainly can be the wire wheelcovers. I've experienced this with two different cars. I had wire covers on my '67 Delta. They're not correct for the year, but they looked good. At times, though, it was like driving with loose nails under the wheelcovers.
I replaced them with the covers that the car was born with, and the silence was golden.
I had a '73 Custom Cruiser a few years ago, and I replaced the original covers with wires. After a while I heard what I thought was a bad wheel bearing. I took it to a shop, he took the covers off and drove the car and said it's the wheel covers, you idiot. OK, he didn't say "you idiot," but I felt like one.
The "wires" on these wheels are not necessarily all installed tightly. Some of them do fit a little loosely in their slots, especially if they've ever been taken apart and cleaned, which I've done. If you're going slowly enough and don't have the radio blaring, you'll hear the clicking noise as they rattle around as the wheel turns. Get up to highway speed and centrifugal force will keep them in place, and you won't hear the rattling, anyway, because of the road and wind noise.
Whenever I hear a clicking noise from a wheel, the first thing I do is remove the wheelcover and drive the car again.
I absolutely hate wire wheel covers for exactly this reason. The ones on my wife's 1985 D88 have the center bolt to retain them and preload them to minimize the noise, but they still go click-click-click at low speeds.
I hate them. Too many individual parts, too many chances for loose parts to make noise.
It isn't just wire wheels that are noisy. My '78 Toronado came with two sets of wheelcovers---full wheelcovers that, obviously, fit over the entire wheel, and then these little 45-rpm-record size things that fit over only the center of the wheel and cover the lug nuts.
These smaller ones don't fit completely tightly, and going over any kind of bump sounds like the suspension is shaking loose. In fact, the noise was so bad I thought it really was something loose underneath as how could that much noise be coming from the wheelcovers? I put the full covers on, and you could hear a pin drop. I like the look of the full covers better, anyway.
My wife's Vert does the same thing. But it's only one cover that "creaks." I've taken it apart and reassembled it making sure all the spokes are tight and it still creaks. It doesn't matter which corner of the car it's on either.
I only hear it when I'm driving next to some sort of barrier like a wall or tall curb and it's only at low speeds. So I'm sure EVERYONE hears it when creeping through a cruise night or show.
reminds me of putting stones in friends hub caps in high school hahah
ive jb welded/ epoxied were the spokes meet, you can get very thin insulation tape or 3-m double sided trim tape and put that on the wheel and attached the hub cap
February 15th, 2018, 01:09 PM
