I have no experience of wire wheels, other than that which I have read over the years on Morgan forums. I have owned a 60`s Lotus Elan with steel knock ons which were cracked due to some measure of excessive tightening made obvious by the obvious damage to it`s spinners.. The old thing lost drive one day as the result of shedding it`s last peg, pegs being used to transmit drive from a plate on the drive shaft that protruded through into the steel wheel... That little ex-race car taught me a lot about mechanical design and failure... (-:
I use nothing much more than logic to think that any play between splined drive shaft and the splines in the hub of a wire wheel is a substantial mechanical flaw, and more so if a clunk may be heard or worse still felt when changing direction of drive.. i.e. fwd to rev, or vice versa..?
It would seem any such clunk may be transferring a metal to metal hammering action that will pass a degree of shock all the way from the wheel hub through to the entire length of the drive system where hopefully the springs in the clutch driven plate halt it`s travel on and into the engine...?
I have read in past times of the splines in the driveshaft and or hub instead of being castellated with flat tops end up with sharp edged peaks due to the hammer action being ignored..
I know not whether the splines on Morgan wheels are parallel or tapered, if parallel then applying more pressure than required to retain the wheel into the mating of hub to shaft would seem likely to cause damage to both the spinner it`s self and it`s seating in the wheel..?
As for grease on the splines, I suspect it`s primary advantage is to reduce the chance of corrosion build up which could cause issues if/when one requires to remove a wheel that has siezed on due to corroded splines..?
Just thinking in type, more than happy to be corrected...
