DIY Modified Centre Wheel Trims

[Peter Truman]

Eons ago I brought a set if Australian Performance Superlite 13*5.5 Minilite replicas, which came with their std chromed wheel centre trim, to me it looked like the worst of the 70's American Styles Chariot wheel Spinners too big and protruded to much! See Photo 1

A new pool pump required pipework mods which reqd semi domed uPVC blank ends, methinks there about the right dia for the our Superlite alloy wheel centre wheel trims, well they were about 1/8in too big in dia so I cut them down in height to 1in high, drilled a hole in the centre of the dome end fitted a threaded bar and secured the end cap by two nuts then inserted into an elect drill and turned them down to the right diameter.

Now I don't like the Leyland round Logo, and I have always loved the old round Triumph World Logo and over the years had collected around 10 of these spun/pressed alloy wheel cap adornments, and fortunately they fitted the turned down UPVC blank ends perfectly. The domed cap was sprayed with silver vinyl paint Triumph World cap bolted onto the dome of the blank end, the Triumph caps have a welded nut on their inside.

To keep the new centre wheel trim in place I fitted a 1/8in wide strip of the furry side of Velcro into the groove in the Superlite inner hole where the usual spinner fingers gripped, I then pushed my DIY Triumph World centre cap in so the dome edge was level with the outer face of the wheel the Velcro keeping it securely in place, see photo 2.

Now page forward to lockdown & Coronavirus & being bored!  I had always disliked the protrusion height of the Std Spitfire 1500 Centre Wheel trim, see photo 3, as it reminded me as per the first sentence above ie Chariot lethal spinners, & I couldn't fit the Triumph Logo as they were to big and overlapped the std cap. So what to do Aah cut 1.375in off the centre trim,after filing flat rotate the removed top section by 45degrees and insert back up the inside of the main or bottom section so the two sections were flat on the top of the truncated cone, photo 4, the cap now only stood 1.625 in tall. The inner and outer were then glued with superglue and inside and outside joins sealed with JB Weld for security. A 5mm rivnut was fitted from the inside so the threaded section was on the outside and the Triumph Globe centre cap could be screwed on, the finished & painted item is shown in photo 5.

So now I only have two spare Triumph Globe domed wheel trims spare it's taken me around 15 years to get what I always wanted!

Will be interested in any comments, I'll get a set of the Triumph Shield 3D centre trims  recently discussed on the Forum to see what they look like in the Superlite wheels, but I know i'll prefer the Triumph Globe, will someone make a 3D version of the Triumph World Logo to fit the Minilite replica's that'll cause me to rethink.

Now what to do with the Dolly Sprint I hate those standard Spun Alloy centre wheel trims they look like a sore thumb sticking out, 3D inserts would be nice!

Peter T

[ahebron]

Peter personally I like what you have done with the superlites but to me the Mk4 caps look wrong with the globe.

Had the same problem with the superlites on my Dads Vitesse but found the caps would go on if the wheel faces faced the centre cap. Superlite NZ  had no interest as they had the money from the wheels.

Adrian

[Peter Truman]

Adrian all a matter of personal choice I always liked the old Triumph globe logo (showing the extent of the Empire Ha!), I also don’t like the big extrusions of the standard centre trims. I would like to try the 3D printer option of the Triumph Shield in the Superlites as offered earlier in the thread.