[Mgs] losing a wheel

[Richard Gosling]

BTDT!!!  Bizarrely, only a few weeks after the same thing happened to my
wife in her car, and along the same stretch of road.  I found my wheel; she
didn't.

In my case it was a front wheel, but I still managed to steer the car safely
to the side of the road.  Wheel was still fine, the car had a slight dent in
the front wing where the wheel hit it, plus the brake disk and disk guard
were worn flat where the car had skidded along on them.

In my case the problem was clear - inappropriate nuts for the wheels.  I'd
just had fitted some alloy wheels from a Triumph Stag.  These LOOK identical
to those fitted to the MGB LE, so I bought some LE nuts to hold them on.
However, the nuts had a small-diameter shank which fits inside the hole in
the wheel to centre the wheel properly, above that a conical section out to
the hex.  The Stag wheels were designed for nuts that had a flat washer
above the small-diameter shank.  That wasn't good, it turns out, and the
nuts worked their way loose 15 miles from the tyre shop where the wheels
were fitted.

I've since replaced the nuts - had a hell of a job finding some with the
correct thread for the MGB (which is different to the Stag) and the right
outside diameter on the shank to fit the holes in the alloys.  No more
problems since :-)

Richard & Sammy ('73 Black Tulip BGT)