SPF GT Wheel Spinner Issues (Early Cars)

[Lynn Miner]

The early SPF GT40s used a low grade stainless steel on the wheel spinners. These spinners will rust after a very short time. The newer units use an alloy spinner like their MK III Cobras so this problem only applies to the first few dozen cars. My solution was to powder coat my spinners. There is a published note on powder coating elsewhere on this site so I won't detail it here only to say that this home use powder coating is so simple you will never use a rattle can again. You'll be amazed how many things you will powder coat once you get set up. When viewing all the published mods I have placed on this site. Not one single part was painted. I powder coated everything. It's cheap, easy and best of all is many times better than paint in both appearance and durability. Anodizing the SS spinners is not an option. Anodizing is for aluminum. Another option is Alodine which is a chromate coating but it fades badly after a short exposure to the sun, (it has a “golden” color and looks good when new).

The spinners need to be clean. I used a wire wheel to get all the surface debris off, then wiped them down with acetone to remove all oil or other contaminates. Obviously you can coat them any color you like. I used the scheme that was used by some teams at Le Mans in the day. Red for the left side (right hand threads), blue for the right side (left hand threads). Besides the corrosion protection afforded by the powder coating, using this scheme keeps the spinners from getting mixed up if you have all four removed at the same time.

The powder coating used here was a two step process. All four spinners were coated with Reflective Chrome from Eastwood. Then the red ones were coated with Anodize Red and the blue ones coated with Anodize Blue.

How is it you ask, do I keep the coating from being destroyed when hammering them on before I safety wire them? I use a three pound plastic dead blow hammer rather than a lead hammer. I realize there are those of you out there who will say this is totally unacceptable because you can not get enough tightness with a dead blow hammer. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I will only say this, I have used this technique on several pin drive wheel cars over the years with many thousands of combined high performance miles and have never had a wheel get loose let alone lose one.

Don't forget to use some anti-seize compound on the threads and on the surface there the spinner contacts the wheel.