Wire wheels are wonderful, but they ask more of the workshop than disc or alloy wheels do, the centre-lock spinners needing a specialist hammer to fit and remove without damage, the splined hubs needing balancing cones during tyre fitment because a conventional cone will not seat on the spline, and the larger spinners benefiting from purpose-made spanners. This section covers the wheel tools that any classic MG benefits from, both for the mechanical job itself, rarely easy on a 60-year-old centre-lock car, and for safe working with the vehicle raised off the ground.
Wire-Wheel Hammers & Spanners
Wire-wheel hammers come in three principal patterns matched to the spinner material and working environment, lead hammers using a soft head that deforms slightly on impact to transfer force without marking the chromed face, copper and hide hammers being the modern equivalent, harder than lead but still softer than the chromed spinner, and these are the correct tools, as a steel hammer used directly on a chrome spinner will mark it immediately and round off the ears within a few uses. The hammer mass should match the wheel application, a smaller hammer for the Midget and MGA and a heavier one for the MGB and MGC with their larger spinners. Two-ear and octagonal spinner spanners provide a controlled-leverage alternative to the hammer, the octagonal spanner being the correct tool for cars supplied with octagonal spinners which cannot be released with a hammer, and a spinner saver protects two-ear knock-ons from hammer damage during repeated fitment.
Balancing Cones & Hub Spanners
Wire-wheel balancing cones are essential when a tyre-fitter without dedicated wire-wheel equipment is balancing a set of wires, as the standard balancing-machine cone seats on the centre bore of a disc or alloy wheel but a wire wheel has no centre bore, its centre being occupied by the splined hub, so the balancing cone fits over the splined hub to provide the central reference the machine needs to spin the wheel true, without which the result is a wheel that vibrates at speed regardless of how the tyre has been balanced. Cones are stocked in the 42mm size that suits all MG applications and the wider British classic range, covered in more detail in the dedicated Wire Wheel Balancing Cones section. Rear hub box spanners in the sizes used across the range are dedicated tools for the rear hub nut, and a steering rack alignment tool assists correct installation of the steering rack.
Lifting, Support & Tyre Tools
Safe wheel work starts with getting the car off the ground and holding it there, the range including trolley jacks and bottle jacks for lifting, scissor jacks for compact roadside use, axle stands for supporting the raised car while work proceeds, and wheel chocks to keep the grounded wheels from moving, with a jack on its own never being a support, the stands and chocks being safety-critical for any wheel-off work, particularly relevant on the front-heavy six-cylinder MGC where the weight can cause the car to roll off the jack on anything other than a perfectly level surface. A side-lift jack is the correct tool for changing a wire wheel at the roadside, as the centre-lock fixing means the wheel cannot be changed with the car on a standard axle-placed jack in the way a bolted wheel can. Four-way and extending wheel-nut wrenches cover steel and alloy wheel removal, with torque wrenches for correct tightening on stud-mounted wheels, and tyre pressure gauges, foot pumps, and tyre lettering pens for sidewall markings complete the section.