Wheels of Fortune

After a getting home from a business trip last night – the first thing I did before work today is drop of the Morgan at a local garage to have the wheels and alignment checked. All they can do is balance a wheel, by adding weights according to the measurements of the machine they have. While checking all four wheels, it was clear to see that balancing alone won’t help – the need to be re-centered. While I went to the office – they were supposed to check the wheel alignment. On the Morgan, camber, castor and kingpin incline cannot be changed – so in theory the entire procedure should be done quickly, as only the toe-in would need to be corrected.

During my lunch break I remembered a MGDC forum on wire wheel centering. There are only a few places left that can do this. The recommended place – the Radspannerei Köhler is in Fachbach – about 75km away from where I live. After a short and friendly call, the owner Stephan Oster told me to that I could bring my wheels today if I want.

But when I wanted to pick up the Morgan – they haven’t even started on the car because the measurements are imperial. WTF?? I was quite annoyed, as the website also states the metric value. Anyhow – back to my garage, quickly putting the Morgan on jack stands, all wheels off and a quick drive to Fachbach. Excellent idea on a Friday afternoon with all that traffic. Fortunately, I managed to get there in time.

First thing we did is to check the balance of the wheels again. If you check out the picture in the gallery and compare it with the video below – you will see that Center Lock wheels should be tested in a special mount when being balanced. The screen at the Radspannerei immediately showed that the values check on the machine this morning were incorrect. For re-centering the tires need to come off. Required anyway – as the old tires are 16 years old and needed to be replaced.

For the Morgan I made a budget decision and ordered Vredestein Classic Sport instead of the Dunlop – which I prefer. I hope that all five (including spare) MWS wire wheels can be saved. They are superseded by the MWS XW459-ST-2/TL which cost a fortune. My plan to do a trip to Aachen with the Morgan tomorrow does not work out now. And wheel alignment also needs to be done before I head off to the UK in 12 days. Instead of a looking for another wheel alignment place that has issues with imperial measurements – I decided to order the Gunson Trakrite system from Amazon.

Back at my garage I checked and correct the handbrake and bleed the system again. The adjuster screws were still in the basic setting – which quickly explained why the handbrake did not work. As the dip beam still doesn’t work – I took out the dashboard again. The switch which I tried to fix is the root cause of the problem. For now – I will just switch the wiring on the switch and put the dip onto the position of the main beam. The main beam can also be switched on from the indicator stalk. Hopefully, I find a replacement at BVAC2023.

A simple and cheap Bluetooth receiver arrived today and will be used to power the speakers – tomorrow I need to find an acceptable position to mount it.