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SSIII Wheel Balance Question on Missing Hub Cover Screws
Hi All,
Last week I replaced the old tires on my 1969 cutlass. I had new Cooper Cobra GT radials installed and the wheels were balanced at the shop. These wheels are SSIII with bolt on center hub covers. Once I got home I was inspecting the wheels and noticed there were several center hub cover bolts missing on each of the wheels. I’m sure these were missing before I took them into the shop and not something they did. After trying to install some new 1/4” X 3/4” #14 sheet metal bolts like the originals I found the holes were stripped out and that is why they were missing. I replaced these sheet metal bolts with 1/4” X 1” bolts with lock nuts & Locktite thread lock. My question now is will adding those missing bolts back on the hub covers change the balance of these wheels? These bolts are located inside the wheel lug nuts toward the center of the wheel so I didn’t know how much effect this would have on the balance. Thanks for any input you can provide.
I guess I’ll answer my own question for the record. I followed up after getting my new tires with getting my front end aligned today. I asked them at the shop about the balance question and they said that they take the caps off anyways to balance so putting them back on with three or five screws wouldn’t matter. I guess since the screws are at the same radius as the lug nuts the weight in question is in the center of the wheel anyways and probably wouldn’t affect the balance out on the outer part of the wheels or tires.
