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I'm back . . .

I had posted about this but no information resulted.

My 54 Cavalier has The full wheel hubcaps (Original). They creep until the valve stem is cocked over and eventually gets ripped out.

I figure the wheels flex's as the car rolls along and walks the grip of the hubcap

I did install Coker Radials a while back.

I believe former owners have had this happen before as I found a gob of some kind of sticky inside the hubcaps with a matching gob on the wheel. When I got the car it had bias ply tires.

All four hubcaps are marked as to where they were such as "RF", LF" etc.

All four creeped originally but just the left front still creeps.

I may trade the left wheel for the spare wheel and I may put in solid valve stems.

Mostly I take off the front left hubcap for drives over 5 miles.

I can't be the only one this has occurred to.

Jim

There is an article in the Co-Operator tech section of the November, 2017 Studebaker Club Turning Wheels magazine. A photo of a stock 63 Stude Avanti wheel with a faint crack on one rim. The submitter says that the crack was due to flexing from radial tires and it was a matter of when, not if a Stude wheel would crack when running radials. One of the column tech guys submits the flexing could also be a reason for so many reports of hub caps walking.

I have no idea if Stude wheels were weaker than Packard wheels and with so many saying radials are OK with bias wheels and seemingly running without problems it could all be so much smoke. Still, if there is one or two hubcaps that seem to be walking more than others it might be a good idea to examine the wheels carefully.

Thanks for that info.

The big time creeper is the left front, none of the others has tried to move recently.

I thought I would try swapping the wheel the spare is on with the left front by swapping the tires. (spare is crappy).

The tires I removed were old bias ply that were over sized and wore both the inside and outside tread. They also wandered all over the road. The radials ride nice and track good.

Jim