Knock-Offs / Wheel Spinners

I have had several people ask about removing and installing the wheels, as well as the safety wire, so thought I would make a video of it.

The car does not have lug nuts like most other cars, it has a central knock-off that tightens onto the hub. The way this is typically done, and has been done on this car, is to use a lead hammer (the one on the toolkit in the trunk) and give it a few good whacks. Hopefully, you don’t hit the paint, or the wheel, or break off one of the three spinner arms.

Knowing my luck, I would damage something, so I did some research. I found a nice tool to do the job - Knock Off Spinner Tool, located in Cotati, CA. They make an Aluminum CNC milled tool that fits over the spinner, with a layer of leather inside to protect the finish. It has a socket end on it where you can mount a large torque wrench. In my case, I purchased a 42” long 600 ft-lbs torque wrench.

Since I did not know how hard the wheels were hammered on there before, I removed each wheel by bumping up the torque on the wrench in increments until it came loose. Three of the wheels were between 550-600 ft-lbs, and one wheel was at about 450 ft-lbs. So based on that, I put the wheels back on at 600 ft-lbs.

You may also notice in pictures of the car there is a safety wire on each wheel attached to the spinner. They look nicely done with a clean twisted wire installed. Well, there is a nice inexpensive tool that does that twisting for you, check out the video below.

00:00 - Introduce the Knock Off Spinner Tool

00:40 - Using the torque wrench to loosen the wheel (reverse threads on passenger side of the car)

01:29 - Removing the spinner

01:53 - Reinstalling the spinner

03:11 - Torque the wheel back on

03:32 - Install the safety wire

06:04 - Install complete