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In looking carefully at a couple of my spare 14” 1964 300K wheel covers, I note that the retaining system consists of three sets of six little scoops and their retaining lips are all pretty well worn and rounded. If they ever had little teeth, they are long gone. As the initially-sharp edges of the scoop lips wear down, only the smooth rounded surfaces of the scoop engage the rim with no digging in. If not dug in, the scoops will slide with normal wheel flex and produce that squawking we all hate. A fourth set of scoops is at the hole for the valve stem and consists of four retaining scoops and two rather shallow anti-rotation scoops that are to engage the anti-rotation bumps in the rim. The anti-rotation scoops are pretty shallow and look like they had been engaging the bumps. Pretty poor design/fabrication IMHO, but most wheel covers are. Friction is a pretty poor method of fastening elements together. It also appears that some time spent sharpening the edges and reshaping the scoops would help. The rim is going to flex with every rotation of the wheel and it appears to me the flexing is more a function of the car weight than sidewall design. A two-ton Brute would put cyclic load of about 1,000 lbs on each rim about 12 times/second at 60 MPH. Radials are designed to run at higher internal pressure than the old bias plies but this is a static pressure and force on the rim. It all adds up and it is the designer’s job to make sure the combination of static, cyclic and shock load (from tar strips to pot holes) is below the endurance limit for the steel. We have all seen rims bent by shock loads from pot holes and accidents and that is the desired result, rather than fatigue failure after umpty-ump cycles of normal operation. All this was known in 1957: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UCM-cb9hwc Rich Barber Brentwood, CA From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Warnaar This is another thought on having 300K wheel covers coming off when driving. Has any one else taken a good look at the 300K wheel cover as compared with the other Letter Car wheel covers? In studying them, it would appear that the basic design might cause the cover to be inherently more flexible. (Not to discount wheel flex also) The outer area of the rim protrudes outward to a greater extent than the others. This could very possibly result in less tension on the rim. The '55 does stick out a bit from the wheel rim, but most of the others are rather concave at their outer edges. Wonder if this might contribute to the reason that the '64 K is most often mentioned when it comes to people having the covers fly off when driving. Just a thought. Any others care to jump in? Don Warnaar __._,_.___ To send a message to this group, send an email to: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or go to http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chrysler300/join and select the "Leave Group" button For list server instructions, go to http://www.chrysler300club.com/yahoolist/inst.htm For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
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