The XK

[middlefour1]

Great work, looks fantastic!!!

[Mike]

Great work!

[neilbardsley]

Looks great

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[jtparr]

Many thanks guys…..much appreciated

I am going to use an E Tye wheel as its about the right size…slightly smaller than the original..but modified……

I bought another one which came with the replacement wooden split rims…which I have built up and stained black…currently building up layers of yacht varnish …seemingly the only proper non water based varnish I can buy…which I am flattening between coats and will finally buff up to create a satin sheen to the rim….whether it is the right thing to have coloured can only be judged at the end…I had to cut and shorten the aluminium hub on the new wheel to get it in the right driving position….which I wasn’t going to do on my original wheel..otherwise I could have just used the E Type one as its currently exists

[jtparr]

Part 28

Wheels

By way of a short stop gap, as I am aware of the almost embarrassing lag in updates…..and by way of a contrast there was the pleasing challenge of what colour to finish the wire wheels…..I had decided that rather than blindly replace the originals I would at least pass them through the hands of a specialist and see of they could be repaired….cue Richard Skinner of Tudor Wheels, based close to Southampton

Richard is very well respected in the vintage car world and has years of experience and hundreds of restored wheels to his credit

All I had to do was choose….black or silver.

I had discounted body colour as the green of the car isn’t dark enough for me and I wanted a stronger contrast to the body anyway

So armed with a couple of spray cans I did a free hand application and we wheeled the car out on a lovely day of sunshine







Black did it for me straight away ….somehow although silver was popular in the day it felt too polite and somehow the black has a more aggressive and appealing quality………so off they went to Richard who pronounced them healthy and perfectly salvageable….his diagnosis was made after a quick test of the condition of the hub for worn splines and any case of ovality in the hub….which apparently is a death sentence for a wheel

Wheels were chemically cleaned, grit blasted and after replacing damaged spokes the assembly is etch primed, powder coated and then a wet spray top coat

They look gorgeous and with the carefully use of adhesive balancing weights on the inner rim were shod with Vredstein tyres plus inner tubes















More later….thanks for all your patience….lets just say the trimming part has taken a great deal longer than I expected…..

[Bootsy]

Looks awesome

[StuMcc]

That is beautiful!


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[911hillclimber]

That will do nicely to say the least.

[sladey]

Looking cool JP

[rhd racer]

Great choice


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[Lightweight_911]

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I must admit I'm not usually a fan of black wheels ... but in this case they do seem to complement the XK's colour perfectly .


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[KS]

As the saying goes, once you've tried black, there's no going back. Looks fabulous!

[Nige]

Good choice on the black finish. Liking the race spec lens retainers, are they OEM?

[jtparr]

Thanks guys….there will be more fairly soon….

[911hillclimber]

I thought it was only me who put tape over wheel weights! Just noticed.

Decades ago I remember a guy sprinting an XK 140 coupe which went well and had that 'sports racer look that your does. Black was a good move.