Wire wheels

[cass3958]

Still looking for the right either chrome or stainless wire wheel for my car. I was looking at a website earlier and they sell both the flat hub and the curly hub wire wheels.At the moment I have painted curly hubs on my car but I saw a late S type at a show recently with the flat hubs and thought he had the wrong wheels on his car. This website that I was reading stated that the late 1967/68 S Type Jaguars were fitted with the flat hubs which are the same as those on the series 3 E Type but not as wide.
"Vehicles manufactured from late 1967 onwards were fitted with Flat (Easy Clean) style hubs as standard"
Anyone on here know which wire wheel design should be fitted to which year of car?
Attached are photos of the flat and curly hubs for those that do not know the difference.

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[Glyn Ruck]

Pressed deep curl hub by Dunlop 1963 to & including 1965 into 66.

Machined from billet centre hub slightly shallower curl introduced during 1966. (what MWS sell today as a curly hub)

To my knowledge the easy clean was never standard fitment to S Types. Pictures of some of the very final cars produced did not have easy cleans. I'm prepared to be proven wrong.

[cass3958]

This appears to be an original 1968 wire wheel with flat hubs Glyn.
http://www.classicandsportscar.ltd.uk/J ... -sold/3491
It has a close up shot of the wire wheel.
Another 1968 with flat hubs unless these are the shallower hub you are referring to but they look flat to me.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... 824163.jpg

According to the parts manual the first 3.4s RHD S Types were fitted with chrome wire wheels part number C14802 up to chassis number 1B8444. From 1B8445 they were fitted with part number C28044 to the last chassis number. My car is 1B8973 so would have been fitted with the C28044 the flat hub. Perhaps David can shed more light on the exact date chassis number 1B8445 was made?

SNG show C28044 as being the flat hub https://www.sngbarratt.com/uk/#!/Englis ... bae061008c and C14802 as being the curly hub. https://www.sngbarratt.com/uk/#!/Englis ... 97d8bcc07c

There must be a Jaguar bulletin on the change of the wire wheel somewhere. Orlando?

[Glyn Ruck]

From further research it certainly appears that some late S Types & 420's did have easy cleans. I could not find one in my archive & it is not listed in the S type books by Taylor et al.

There are definitely 2 curley hubs. Pressed & machined from billet & covered by the scribes. Possible that the P/N did not change. The two curley hubs are also obvious to the trained eye.

Thanks Rob I've added the pics to my archive & will continue to search for a bulletin etc. David might have better resources in this regard.

We live & learn. Trouble with wheel types is one can never tell whether they were fitted OE to the car from pictures.

[cass3958]

A friend of mine has an S Type identical to mine in colour but a 3.8s. It is a 1968 S type with wire wheels and it is original where as I have converted mine so the wheels are not original. We were at a show recently and I was able to get both cars side by side and I noted that his wheels were flat hubs where as mine were curly and I assumed he had the wrong wheels on taken from an E Type. From what I have now found out, his are the original flat hubs that came with the car from new. Mine is on the right and Mike's on the left. The close up shows his flat hubbed wheels.

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[Glyn Ruck]

Thanks for the confirmation Rob. Trouble with my archive is that I have concentrated on the !965/66 model period with some interesting exceptions where other years differ. I have relied on Taylor for the rest & he only covers the 2 curly hubs. Should have checked the parts manual. Sorry for the bum steer.

Presume you will be going for easy cleans?

[cass3958]

I actually prefer the look of the curly hubs Glyn so I am in two minds whether to go for aesthetic look or original look. No one else will know the difference as no one knew on here and we are the enthusiasts, so it does not matter. I have already lost so many points that Pebble Beach will never invite me so I don't care.

Curly hubs are more expensive. They come out at £15 per wheel more for some reason direct from MWS.

I made some online enquiries for prices. Most of the wheels are made by MWS and yet going direct to MWS you find they are the most expensive to buy from, between £40 to £60 more expensive per wheel. I am sure they would price match their own wheels and I have yet to speak to anyone with regards to a trade deal so I am sure I would be able to get them cheaper somewhere.

Cheapest I have found.
SC Parts do the curly hubs XW455 for £276 each (£1104 for four) and M&C Wilkinsons do the flat hub XW472 for £267 (£1068 for four) so an extra £32 for a set of four curly hubs. I can live with that. These are in chrome with stainless spokes. If I wanted to go to all Stainless wheels I would be looking at £450 per wheel.

[Glyn Ruck]

I prefer the curly hubs. Chrome with chromed stainless spokes are fine. The SS wheels look a little dull & yellow.

These were some of my reference late European cars with dummy horn grills instead of fog lights. Obviously not late enough or curly hub wheels fitted later.

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[cass3958]

Today I spoke to a man from MWS about the wheels and the curly hubs.

He stated that Jaguar changed the hubs in the early 60s because Dunlop were having a problem with chroming such a deep curl in the hub. Painting the wheels was not a problem it was getting the chrome in to the deep groove. They went to a shallower curving hub but the part number did not change. He did not know the exact date they changed but it must have been in the life span of the S Type.

I talked to him about pricing and asked why MWS priced their wheels direct at a higher price than someone like SC Parts who were supplying the same MWS wheel for £70 less. He explained that suppliers such as SC Parts, M&C Wilkinson and SNG Barratt were given a large bulk discount by MWS who did not stipulate what the market retail price should be for the wheels. So when SC Parts are pricing it £70 cheaper they are in fact passing on some of their bulk discount to the customer. Where as SNG Barratt are selling the MWS wheel at just £3 cheaper than the MWS price meaning they are keeping nearly all of the discount they are getting as profit.
MWS would not discount their wheels direct to me to match the price of SC Parts nor were they interested in a trade price as they did not want to annoy their bulk buyers and suppliers.

I know who I am going to go to for parts and especially wheels in the future and it is not SNG.

[Glyn Ruck]

Yes ~ I had heard the chroming issue with the deeper curl (not sure I buy it) but the deep curl was a pressing while the shallow curl was/is turned from billet.

BTW ~ Those old Dunlop presses ended up in India. Probably now scrapped.