Wheel trims
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2025 9:53 pm
I know not for the purist, can I put chrome wheel trims on an early series 11. I believe genuine wheels. Is there any numbers on wheels to tell if they are original
So, a 1952 SII had the same axle and wheels as the MM; the original wheels have 3 pins for the hubcap to fit to, rather than bulges in the wheel pressing. Early wheels have Bolts into hubs.
They are also prone to fatigue cracking, so perhaps they're not original....
At the end of '53, they changed the axle and wheels, although they kept the 3 pin fixing.
Pre and post this change point they are not interchangeable.
But eventually on the SII they changed the pressing to have the hubcaps clip directly to the wheel.
If you have the early wheels, finding trims to fit could be a hard job.....
Unless you are already well versed in Minors, and if you are then I doubt you would have asked this wheel question, you need to know the 'state' of your car.
My advice to you before you go thinking about any changes to the car, is take a few weeks or months to learn about 'your' car, how genuine it is and what has been changed in the past 70+ years.
As the owner of a '55 SII, I'm speaking from personal experience; I was still finding out fairly significant things that had been changed for the first few years after I brought him.
Don't even trust official paperwork. I brought mine with documents saying he had a 948 engine to replace the 803, even a copy of a letter from a garage saying it was a 948.
Took me a while to discover they had fitted a 1098, which explained why the clutch was never quite right, because they had misidentified the engine, the gearbox mounting plate was the wrong one.
It had been like that for quite a few years and a handful of owners!
