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MG MGA - Moss vs. Dayton Wire Wheels

Some time ago I acquired a set of Moss 60 spoke wire wheels (in painted version) for my MGA restoration project. I checked them for trueness(?) when I received them and they looked fine. The general finish was quite nice and they were the "correct" silver color.
The problems came when I went to have them mounted. I opted for hand mounting and after dropping them off at the shop (a porsche/audi repair facility that does nice work the way you ask for it and charges a lot, I received a call. It was the mechanic saying that I should come and look at my wheels before he went any further. Upon arrival, I saw my new wire wheel looking like it had gone through a machine mounting at the local farm cooperative tractor shop! The paint was falling off! The new Moss wire wheels made in India are pretty and true, but the finish seems to lack durability.
I halted the shop's progress, paid the $20 asking for the work done, collected my wheels and left.
My solution was to order a set of painted Daytons. But when these arrived, I just could not live with the almost battle ship grey color of the wheel. Dayton insists that there color is correct but I know different. The wheels were beautiful but just too dark of a color.
The next move was to return these wheels for a set of the same in chrome and tubeless. It took some time to get the replacement chrome wheels but when they arrived, I set about to hand mounting them myself. Mind you, I did not check for trueness as I felt Dayton's reputation insured a good true wheel. I have hand mounted tires before, and it has always gone well, especially with a slightly wider wheel for the given tire width and the addition of the tubeless feature. The wheels are 15x5 and the tires 165. This proved to be correct as the mounting went smoothly. Two days later, one of the tires was flat. Checking for leaks on the tire and the spokes revealed no leaks, but the soap bubbles revealed a slow leak at the bead. I dismounted the tire and found a slight distortion in the seam where the rim is welded together. A few minutes work and another 10 minutes with the tire irons (covered with leather glove fingers) the tire was back on with (TADA!!)--NO LEAKS!
Now I am wondering if the wheels are true? I hope so but will not know until my rear axle is back together (see my other threads).
Has any one out there had a bad experience with lack of trueness on Dayton wire wheels? I have searched the archives and found no one to have had that any bad experience with trueness, but I will sleep better with some reaffirmation.
I will report back on the trueness(is trueness a word?) when my axle is back together.
James Johanski

James can you fit the wheels one by one to a front hub and spin them to check how true they are, using a pointer on the rim? Or are you more concerned about balance? Of course if they are true they can be balanced easily - with the correct adaptor on the balancer.
Neil McGurk

Neil, Thank you for the suggestion. My front hubs/suspension are also apart. The rear axle will be ready before the front, so I will use the rear for checking. I have always used the rear rather than the front to check wheels, because I do not have to lock the steering.
James Johanski

I had posted a year ago that I had a bad experience with the new Dayton chrome rim spokes breaking loose. After contacting them to complain they started to give me the run around. I then posted on all the forums complaining which started a firestorm. Shortly there after the President of Dayton contacted me, apologized, and expedited the repairs. For that I was very grateful and retracted the negative response about them. Here it is a year later and I am prepping for another season and removed one of the rims that did not require repairs at the time. Now I have 11 spokes that have popped on one rim. Has anybody else experienced this?

WMR Bill

Anothe pis of the spoke ends

WMR Bill

Wow. And I thought Dayton were supposed to be the good wire wheels.

Makes me feel better about my Dunlops.

I hope you get that sorted soon Bill.

Cheers,
Christopher
Christopher Wilson

Bill,
WOW! That looks like someone severly overtightened the spokes. Please keep us posted on your problem resolution. I have the same wheels on 4 of my cars and so far no problems except on one rim I did have a pin hole leak in the sealant which I fixed. Dayton ofered to fix it if I wanted to send it back to them. The freight costs were prohibitive. Have a good day!

John
John Progess

I do not want anyone to get the wrong idea. Dayton has been very good on addressing the problem and I really like the wheels. There response was that when they assembled my rims they used the wrong angled spokes causing stress on the heads. I am just curious if anybody else has gone thru this experience. Based on how they handled this issue (They are sending me a new rim) I have been very pleased with them.
WMR Bill

WMR, I have a set of 72 spoke Dunlops made in India that look just like your picture. Over the years I have heard that the spoke breakage on the chrome Dunlops is due to them not stress releaving the spokes after chroming to eliminate hydrogen embrittlement. Hope they are correct on your wheels having the wrong spokes. I replace about 12 spokes a year between the four wheels.
J Heisenfeldt

Bill, I now remember your problems from last year. I hope I do not have the same. It looks to me like Dayton is not as good as most people think. Still how they handle a problem is the true measure of the company. I did not contact Dayton about the rim weld problem as I was just happy that I could find and correct the problem. I hopw that I do not have any further problems.
James Johanski

My Dunlops (new last year) 72 spoke 5.5" have supposedly stainless steel spokes that have been chromed, where as I believe Daytons are polished stainless steel spokes only.
Hydrogen embrittlement should be less with stainless steel? Any metallurgists out there?
BTW my wheels are still fine even after a bit of spirited motorkhana action (as you would hope)!
Mike
Mike Ellsmore

I have the usual 60 spoke MWS wheels on my MGB. Made in India, with chrome rim and center and stainless spokes. After six years and about 17.000 reasonably spirited miles, many of them on rough mountain roads, my wheels are completely true and have no loose spokes.

I may be lucky, but I am starting to think that the Moss/Dunlop/MWS wheels deserve a better reputation than they seem to have.

Tore
Tore

This thread was discussed between 16/04/2009 and 28/04/2009

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