Mike Poorboy wrote:
>
> Terry,
> Thanks, I was aware of the physical properties of magnesium.
> I believe a road flare has or use to have magnesium in them.
> I even looked up the atomic mass of both elements. Magnesium is
> number 12 and aluminum is 13 there is not much difference in mass,
> so you are right on the specific gravity test in water. The brittle
> characteristic
> is what I was concerned with.
>
> Les, from CDM answered my question for me. He informed me that
> Minilites had their name stamped on the front of the rim.
Although there isn't a big difference in their atomic mass numbers,
there is a big difference in the weight of wheels in aluminum vs
magnesium. I have had sets of identical ARE 8 spoke wheels, one in
magnesium and the other in aluminum and the difference was considerable.
However to run the mag wheels on the street you had to somehow coat the
inside of the wheel to prevent air leakage as magnesium is so porous
that it leaks air. After you epoxied or powdercoated the wheel, or added
a tube, the wheels weren't all that much lighter. So for racing where
the wheels only need to hold air for a race, the mags are perhaps
better. On the street they are not a great idea.
BTW there are many companies that have produced "Minilite" type
eight-spoke wheels, including;
ARE (American Racing)
Shelby
GB
Motobuild (sold in Great Britain, I think these are the GB wheels
reboxed in essence)
Minilite (the new company that bought the rights to the name and some of
the old designs)
Minilite (the original British company)
Western
Panasport
Watanabe
EMPI
plus a few others who I can't remember right now
plus several others who don't always put their name on the wheels (these
include a company in Australia that is making the original centerlock
mount type eight-spoke wheels for many British cars)
While each company had a slightly different take on these wheels, most
folks don't know enough and/or pay enough attention to notice the
difference and they lump them all together. And some are almost
identical, such as the Shelby and the Western's (I've owned both and I
think they might have been made by the same place). From what Les and I
have been able to deduce the EMPI and ARE wheels are also almost
identical and may have been made by the same people. I had an odd ball
set of ARE's once that were mag and not aluminum. They were 14x5.5 and
the OD of the center hub projection was threaded so you could run a
special centerlock type spinner onto the wheel to make it look more like
a real centerlock wheel. You used to see a lot of the ARE's on Triumph
TR4-6's.
Oh and the same thing holds true for the Libra style wheels, they were
made by at least 4 companies. Shelby made their version called the
Viper, US racing wheel called the LeMans, ARE made the Libra, and there
was some other brand neither Les nor I can remember. But all four wheels
look so much alike you are hard pressed to tell them apart.
I'll do an article on this in a future issue with pictures so folks can
better identify what they're dealing with. I'll also publish the
story on our webpage (probably before it gets into print).
--
Marc Sayer
Editor/Publisher
Z Car & Classic Datsun Magazine
http://zcarmag.com
Voice 541-726-6001
Fax 541-746-0863/726-6001
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