Hot Rods Hub caps questions.

Hey all. Our new to us ride, a 52 Plymouth 2 door station wagon, has a set of 4 hub caps on it.
We have manages to put about 300 miles on it since mid May, when it arrived here.
Its been a very long time since I have had anything with full wheel covers on it. On our first road trip, we got about 30 miles out of town, traveling on a fairly smooth road at about 55 mph, and had to stop and chase down a run-a-way hub cap, off of the right front. Fortunately, we watched where it went and was able to retrieve it pretty quickly. I put it in the back seat for safe keeping.

When we got home, I pulled the other 3 hub caps off, and stretched the grip edges out just a bit more on all of the caps. They seemed to grip the wheels a bit better. When I put them back on with a rubber mallet, all 4 seemed to grip a bit better then before, and i know all 4 were seated tight on the wheels.

So here we are, about a month and a half later, cruising down a different fairly smooth road, and we had to stop and chase down another run-a-way hub cap. We also watched where this one went, and we were able to retrieve it also. This hub cap also came off the same right front wheel, but I am unsure if its the same hub cap or not. I'm going to mark it this time before I pry the grip edges out a bit again, and put it back on the wheel.

So I'm sitting here thinking, could this be a hub cap problem, or could it be something wheel related, or maybe even a wheel balance or brake out of balance problem? I won't be happy if I have to stop and chase down run-a-way hub caps every time we reach highway speeds.

These are cheap light weight OEM style Plymouth full cover hub caps, might even be the originals to the car, except they are for 15" wheels. The wheels on the car are modern disc brake, painted, wheels.

Please educate me on hub caps again.

 

Timely post. I too am having the same issue and coincidentally on same wheel as you. I wasn't as lucky to find mine and I'm hesitant to put the replacement on just yet. I've played with higher air pressures in the past and that helped but now I think the issue might be lack of paint left on the wheel for the edges to grip. I'm considering painting the wheel and giving it another go. I also plan on writing my phone number of the back in case someone else finds it.

 

Take a very good look at your wheel if it is the riveted type. I had one years ago and it kept throwing off the cover
Looking at the back side of the wheel, the whole thing was flexing but never leaked any air. I swapped out the wheel for a welded one and never lost another wheel cover on that car until I sent the whole thing to the s****per. Rust ate the frame.

 

That is somewhat disappointing to hear. There are no older wheels with the correct bolt pattern for my disc brakes, and I don't believe there are any full length hub caps available for my current modern welded wheels.
I suppose I could just put the caps on when I enter a show, but the current wheels are ugly.
I'm open to suggestions here.

My current wheels are modern welded wheels, but maybe I need to pull it off and look for a problem...

 

I the past when I had the same problem my granddad told me to rework the grippers on the hubcap but before you put them back on the car run a couple of strips of duct tape around the rim where the grippers will penetrate the duct tape and help hold them on.

After I tried his trick the hubcaps stayed on for over a year and then I had a flat tire, I put the hubcap back on the rim with the old used duct tape and threw the hubcap on the way home, redid the duct tape and never lost another one. I sold the car a few months later and the new owner installed a set of Sears mags. HRP

 

I wonder if maybe four tack welds around the lip of the wheel would keep your hubcaps out of the ditch.

 

When Chevy started using full wheel covers in the mid 50s, the wheels had 4 "nubs" that retained the cover. They even put them on the reproduction wheels. But the wheel cover is designed to have them, and won't stay on at all without them.

Wonder if you could duplicate it, but not as pronounced.

 

Doesn’t Gene’s style cap grip the inner part of the rim at the arrows? And not on the nubs I know the dog dish caps snap over the nubs, guess I never had a full size cap grip the nubs, interesting
Dan

 

these

 

My first car ('57 Chevy) kept losing the right rear wheel cover; it turned out that the wheel was from a later model and didn't have the four nubs.

 

I've done the duct tape trick. It wasn't to keep the covers on though, it was to keep them from turning on the wheels. After a few hundred miles on the hi-way they would turn enough to bend the valve stems over at a pretty good angle. After putting the duct tape on the covers didn't rotate at all.

 

Hey I’m ready for new gl***es lol
Dan

 

I've heard the duct tape trick works, I've also heard that the softness of radial tires had something to do with the hubcaps wanting to walk off, something about how the load is distributed on the rim, although I don't know how true that is.

I feel like a lot of people have had issues trying to keep full wheel covers snapped on over modern wheels, the caps just don't fit them properly.

 

Newer JJ bead wheels?
Shows the same 5 degree angle where the caps fit.

Tired old caps/teeth? Maybe.
Radial runs rougher? Maybe.
Modern wheel harder - less bite? Maybe.
Had a friend who had a early 70 OT ride with stock hubcaps. 15s, radials, more 'sporty'. He was chasing hubcaps off that on a regular basis. It usually ended up being the same cap.
It might be useful to do some weld beads and the duct tape, but I haven't tried running full covers on anything I've owned.
You can check runout on the car (mounted on the rotor). Then take it to a tire shop and check balance/runout.
Hopefully this thread gets some real quality recent experience and tips.

 

Sometimes, a simple fresh coat of paint on the wheels will help. Think about it, each time you take a wheel cover off and on you're likely losing a bit of paint to those wicked grippers.

 

On an OT Merc it has a spider that bolted on with three of the lug nuts. Then a special tool in the glove box to remove and install them in a threaded center of the spider with a press in center cap. Fake wire wheel look with the security and thief proof addition all in one. Not really an option but some food for thought from manufacturers.

 

I think the tires are the problem with losing hubcaps. Radials flex a lot more than bias tires and that flex seems to be enough to loosen hubcaps enough to pop off. I hesitate to drive with them installed because of this; I'd rather pop them on and off on purpose..... tuck 'em in the trunk for driving.

 

yeah, try getting a full wheel cover to stay on a tandem axle trailer! they flex like crazy when turning

 

If you have radial tires with old wheels, the radial tires make the wheel flex. The flexing wheel is what throws the wheel cover. That was not a problem with the old bias ply tires.

 

I suppose some of the problem could be due to the fact that steel wheels, even new ones, have a tendency to flex at least to some small degree. Years ago the OEMs sometimes had problems with groans and squeaks and wheel cover retention. Most of the time I imagine they made changes to the wheel cover design rather than the wheel itself. But the steel wheels still flexed.

I could see problems with out-of-round wheels or run-out that was out of specs or out of balance. Pretty easy to check out those dimensions. Closely inspect the contact surfaces between the wheel and the face of the rotors or drums. See if any of the contact surfaces appear "burnished".

Do you just install the wheels with an impact wrench? Maybe try hand tightening the lugs and then checking them with a torque wrench. Radial tires, and wider stickier tires in general, likely make the wheel flex more or differently.

Older wheels designed to go down the road safely at 50 or 60 MPH probably don't behave as well at 70 or 80 MPH. And the older the wheels are, the more likely they are to suffer from being fatigued.

 

Hey Gene
I had the same problem as Center of the Galaxie with them spinning on the wheel. I bent the clips and put four one inch strips of silicone to stop it. Worked well. Hey are you going to put a 350/350/9in in the wagon?

 

@MMM1693 Check out the post over in the Off-Topic section ***led Well, I Did It Now!

 

Hey Gene, I had the same thing happen on the rear of a '53 Olds that had skirts. Nothing like the sound of a loose wheel cover clanging around between the wheel and skirt at highway speed to make you think the car is coming apart at the seams! As the sound stopped, I looked in the mirror to witness the skirt skidding down the highway, and the wheelcover rolling. The same 18 wheeler got them both...under his wheels...not sure if it was on purpose...but it seemed like pretty good aiming.

Anyway, when I got home and re-installed a spare cap, I put 3-4 dabs of silicone around the edge of the covers/wheels. They never came off on their own again. The silicone dabs were small enough, that regular prying to remove the wheelcovers would overcome the silicone grip.

 

I have had the occasional wheel cover fly off. It usually seemed to be the same wheel. Changing wheel covers did not help. A different wheel usually fixed it.
I guess this must have always been a problem. At the drag strip you were usually required to remove them before you could race.

 

No one's said it yet, but cool car!

 

Had one hub cap that would fly off. Tried several things before I used velcro which seems to work so far. This is on early Ford wheels with repro hubcaps.

 

62 vette caps on my 54 Chevy flew off the right front. In later life I figured out why. The grease cap and the hubcap were touching.

 

I'm older than dirt and still learn something new here everyday. That's one for my notes.

 

Nothing to ruin your day much more than seeing ANOTHER wheel cover p***ing you into oncoming traffic... took the other two off my '66 Galaxie the same day.