I've seen a couple of 6-cylinder coupes for sale with steel wheels. Anyone have any idea how much I should figure on spending to convert to wire wheels? I can do the assembly/disassembly myself and have modest machining ability. I'm totally okay with used wheels and don't care if they're not perfect.

 

Hope this helps...
I can think of two ways - aftermarket bolt on wires. Look terrible and might not be available cheap. (i.e. expensive waste). The OEM way is very daoable, but not easily machined in the average home shop because the hubs have a spline drive. Basically look in the manual for wheel bearing replacement, and change the hubs at the same time. At a minimum you will need:
Hubs x4
Spinners x4
Wheels x 5
Rim bands x 5
Inner tubes x 5
Valve stem grommet thingys x 5
Wheel bearings x 8 (maybe you can save some - but don't count on it)
Oil seals & tracks x 8 (probably)
J15 tool for setting a baseline for the rear hub end float (you can make that)
Spacers to set rear hub wheel bearing float
Residual torque nuts for the front hub x10
You might need shims for the rear camber - don't know
Maybe residual torque nuts for the rear drive shafts x8 (if you need to re-shim the camber)

This should help give you a reasonable idea of costs.

BTW - I went down the used wire wheel route once, since mine were ugly. Getting the spokes tight and the wheel true is extremely time consuming. I did it - more of a triumph of OCD over common sense. The wheels came out perfect and they're original Dunlops - but never again - just too much time taken to remove the spokes, clean, replace rusty / broken ones with good. I restored the wheels for free since the wheels were donated - but I needed to dismantle eleven donated wheels to salvage enough spokes, nuts, rims and curly hub centers. I also needed to restore a kindly donated wheel trueing machine! Now I can true wheels, install rim tape, inner tubes & tires, and balance good enough for very spirited driving. I learned a lot!

Good luck!

 

That's very helpful, thank you. I could conceivably machine splines but I wouldn't try it on this.
From what I can see on parts diagrams it looks like there's a U-joint with a splined axle and the part with the wheel splines goes on that. I haven't found a diagram for the steel wheeled version, so I don't know which parts are different.

I guess it comes down to how many of these parts are kicking around used. I wouldn't think a huge number of people are converting their e-types to solid wheels the way they do with some other British cars.

BTW that looks like a sweet FHC

 

I think its the same drive axle whether its solid wheels or wire wheels. SNG Barratt has great parts diagrams available on their website which might be helpful.

HTH, Dave

 

Still looking for wire wheels? I am close to buying a Series 1.5 or 2 with wire wheels. I want steel wheels. Maybe we could swap parts?