New to TVR

[danieljg]

Hi all,

New to TVR - I just bought myself a '92 4.3 Griffith, reliving the memories of my youth as my father had one new back then and now its my turn. I actually believe it has been owned by a couple of you on this forum (K666 GRF) so it will be nice to track you down at some point.

Just one problem with it (at the moment) - its wearing a set of 500 Estorils, aside from the fact they aren't my taste at all, they are not original so I would like to change them. So I have a couple of questions:

1. My fathers had the Oz Split rims, which I know are incredibly hard to find but is anybody aware of a set of these being sold these or indeed the Camille Gottis/Axia AMILs? The car must have originally had a set one of the later wheels before the Estorils were put on.

2. As an potential alternative, I'm looking at options in terms of a split rim - for example the Lenso BSX. It looks like I can get rears in pretty much the correct sizing (16x7.5 ET 35 not quite ET 33) but the fronts are little bit further apart (15x7 ET 30 or ET 20 instead of ET 26). Has anyone got any experience with these? How did they fair?

Thanks,
Dan

[Matthew Poxon]

Congratulations on the TVR. I hope you are enjoying the ownership experience so far.

I cannot comment on the OZ split rim alternative although I know a few on here have gone down the Lenzo route so hopefully they will be able to offer some assistance.

Bear in mind those Estorils on your car are worth a fair bit of money so you may be able to get some new wheels and tyres for your car from the proceeds of your sale. I cannot comment on what yours are worth but mint sets have been known to change hands for £700-£1k. Just to make sure you don't give them away for nothing!

[andy43]

Welcome
Precats rock - best noise by far.
The Estorils are getting rare, so don't just give them away - £700-ish all the way up to breakers prices of 1500 a set seems to be the norm.
Original 5 spoke precat wheels are like rocking horse poo. I too love the look of the OZ split rims, but again, very hard to find, so I have fitted the Lensos.
They're great - cheap, they look close enough to real splitties from a distance, and I could get them in the correct 15/16" sizes and offsets - but to be honest if I was doing it again I'd go for 16/17" sizes as the extra inch just seems to make a massive difference to the look of the car. Centre caps are 'chrome' effect plastic - but they look ok and have been on 3 years so far with no corrosion. PITA to keep clean though!
There's also Calibre Vintage and another brand that slips my mind that are both pretty close to the OZs.
Thread here worth a read - Lensos etc near the end - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I must learn to type quicker

[citizen smith]

danieljg,

You have p.m., Hope that you kept the plate. Devil if you didn't.

[danieljg]

andy43 said:

Welcome
Precats rock - best noise by far.
The Estorils are getting rare, so don't just give them away - £700-ish all the way up to breakers prices of 1500 a set seems to be the norm.
Original 5 spoke precat wheels are like rocking horse poo. I too love the look of the OZ split rims, but again, very hard to find, so I have fitted the Lensos.
They're great - cheap, they look close enough to real splitties from a distance, and I could get them in the correct 15/16" sizes and offsets - but to be honest if I was doing it again I'd go for 16/17" sizes as the extra inch just seems to make a massive difference to the look of the car. Centre caps are 'chrome' effect plastic - but they look ok and have been on 3 years so far with no corrosion. PITA to keep clean though!
There's also Calibre Vintage and another brand that slips my mind that are both pretty close to the OZs.
Thread here worth a read - Lensos etc near the end - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I must learn to type quicker

Andy - thanks for the reply.
Where did you purchase your Lensos from? I was looking on Demon Tweeks. I'd be interested to see what offsets the place you bought yours offer. If I end up having to pick ET 30 or ET 20, would you agree I should go outwards rather inwards? Ie go for the ET 20 rather than ET 30?

D

[danieljg]

citizen smith said:

danieljg,

You have p.m., Hope that you kept the plate. Devil if you didn't.

Hi! Trying to navigate around and find where pm's are hidden. I have indeed still got the number plate.

D

[andy43]

danieljg said:

andy43 said:

Welcome
Precats rock - best noise by far.
The Estorils are getting rare, so don't just give them away - £700-ish all the way up to breakers prices of 1500 a set seems to be the norm.
Original 5 spoke precat wheels are like rocking horse poo. I too love the look of the OZ split rims, but again, very hard to find, so I have fitted the Lensos.
They're great - cheap, they look close enough to real splitties from a distance, and I could get them in the correct 15/16" sizes and offsets - but to be honest if I was doing it again I'd go for 16/17" sizes as the extra inch just seems to make a massive difference to the look of the car. Centre caps are 'chrome' effect plastic - but they look ok and have been on 3 years so far with no corrosion. PITA to keep clean though!
There's also Calibre Vintage and another brand that slips my mind that are both pretty close to the OZs.
Thread here worth a read - Lensos etc near the end - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I must learn to type quicker

Andy - thanks for the reply.
Where did you purchase your Lensos from? I was looking on Demon Tweeks. I'd be interested to see what offsets the place you bought yours offer. If I end up having to pick ET 30 or ET 20, would you agree I should go outwards rather inwards? Ie go for the ET 20 rather than ET 30?

D

I bought them through Wheelbase in Oldham - I'm in the north west so they were pretty much my closest supplier anyway. They've got a website but probably won't list all the options, just sets of 4 identical wheels on the website, so you'd need to phone them. They ordered the wheels in specially from Lenso with my requested offsets - they'll machine the offset and pcd free of charge at Lenso - so I have 7x15 et25 and 7.5x16 et35 exactly the same as the factory wheels. I think Wheelbase could also machine an offset if the manufacturer doesn't offer it.

[danieljg]

andy43 said:

I bought them through Wheelbase in Oldham - I'm in the north west so they were pretty much my closest supplier anyway. They've got a website but probably won't list all the options, just sets of 4 identical wheels on the website, so you'd need to phone them. They ordered the wheels in specially from Lenso with my requested offsets - they'll machine the offset and pcd free of charge at Lenso - so I have 7x15 et25 and 7.5x16 et35 exactly the same as the factory wheels. I think Wheelbase could also machine an offset if the manufacturer doesn't offer it.

That is what I planned to do with Demon Tweeks because their website only advertises sets of 4 of the same. As an idea Andy - if you are thinking of going for the larger wheels, I could buy yours off you and you could order what you want in the next size up. I assume you ordered the Silver/Mirror lip ones? What condition are yours in?

[Stever]

Hi I went the Lenso route very recently see this thread for all the details.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Matthew Poxon]

That looks epic

[danieljg]

Stever said:

Hi I went the Lenso route very recently see this thread for all the details.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Steve - thank you very much for sending this through. Answers my question about the offsets for the front.

I am/was actually leaning towards going for 16” all round, picture below from another thread ‘The Last Griffith’ with 16” all round....great to see your car and what it looks like with the 17s on the back though.

[andy43]

I s'pose the chance of flogging you my minter than mint 15/16" Lensos shod with some rather underused Toyos is disappearing fast with all these 16/17" photos being put up

[danieljg]

andy43 said:

I s'pose the chance of flogging you my minter than mint 15/16" Lensos shod with some rather underused Toyos is disappearing fast with all these 16/17" photos being put up

Haha! Andy you were to slow. I’m now going to get 16’s all round for sure.

[andy43]

danieljg said:

andy43 said:

I s'pose the chance of flogging you my minter than mint 15/16" Lensos shod with some rather underused Toyos is disappearing fast with all these 16/17" photos being put up

Haha! Andy you were to slow. I’m now going to get 16’s all round for sure.

I'd go 16/17s for definite to keep that hot rod look

[danieljg]

andy43 said:

I'd go 16/17s for definite to keep that hot rod look

I think the smaller wheels look better on the older cars. Smaller rims, more rubber. The large rims are a far more modern approach.

[Stever]

The 16"s alround look great I just wanted to keep the nose down stance and have a better choice of tyres. The large rears seem to be accentuated with the roof down




As mentioned in the thread I bought mine from Rimstyle and they were great but I would enquire early as it took about 3 months for the right size to be available. The new wheels have transformed the cars appearance I can't stop sneaking out to the garage to have another look at them

Good luck

[Stever]

Also, if you buy the TVR wheel centres off ebay they are slightly too big and one will fall off very quickly if you don't make an adjustment, ask me how I know

The best method to adjust I found was to switch on a mouse sander and hold the sticker in the middle between thumb and finger and it will spin on the surface like a wheel making the reduction (only a mm or so) uniform and even

[danieljg]

Yea I don’t dislike the 17’s at all and agree on the stance to a certain degree. But I think I just prefer it to have more rubber. My father agrees with you and he had one with the original 16/15 Oz wheels!

[danieljg]

Stever said:

Also, if you buy the TVR wheel centres off ebay they are slightly too big and one will fall off very quickly if you don't make an adjustment, ask me how I know

The best method to adjust I found was to switch on a mouse sander and hold the sticker in the middle between thumb and finger and it will spin on the surface like a wheel making the reduction (only a mm or so) uniform and even

Hi Steve, had a quick look on eBay appears you can get a variety of sizes of self adhesive stickers for the wheel centres..? Smallest size is 40mm did that not fit?

[Stever]

Hi Dan

I think my quick measure of the the Lenso wheel centre suggested 70mm but I guess it's actually 69mm so anything much smaller would look odd??

Just my recollection but please don't take my measurements for done as I may have the wrong size in my memory