How dangerous are a few loose wheel tenons?

[colonelpowers]

The wife and I took the T on a nice long drive yesterday and coming home I had stopped to get gas. As I generally do whatever I stop I was checking over things and noticed a little bit of play in one of the rear wheels. It is not much, but perceptible. I can feel no effect from the problem while driving and am pretty thorough in frequently inspecting the car and never noticed it before. Since I have been back I still haven't removed the rim to inspect things closer. I have ordered from Stutzman before and plan on respoking the wheel but would like to make it until Winter before I do. I have in the past driven cars with much worse wheels but I was younger and dumber so I thought I would ask for your opinions on the subject.

[DHort]

You have posted twice. IF you go to one of the posts you will see and X in a box just to the right of your message. Click that to delete the extra post. Once someone has posted on your original post, you will not be able to delete it.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

Since you posted this twice, I'll answer you twice...


Joshua,

It would be irresponsible for any of us to say "you'll be fine", since we can't actually see and touch your wheels. Maybe they'd be okay for a while, but none of us can know that. The only good advice here, is to rebuild them.

[Charlie B in N.J.]

Dangerous enough and it'll only get worse. It's going to let you down at some point.

[TRDxB2]

Would you drive you modern car with 1 or 2 missing lug nuts on the same wheel? How fast and/or far?

[Stephen_heatherly]

Have the wheel rebuilt.

Stephen

[JTT3]

Joshua get it rebuilt. Order the spokes & do it yourself or send it off to be done. On a budget then get that one repaired. And work your way around to all 4 counting a spare. I had a friend now passed that would remove the best spokes from bad wheels and use them to repair wheels. It worked for him but I’m of the belief that “Murphy” was an optimist. Over a few decades I’ve seen a lot of techniques to repair not rebuild a wheel. Some of those were almost genius to “get by” another year without rebuilding & yes I’ve done it too. It’d be interesting to see if others have seen these “get by” repairs. I’m not admonishing the reason, some where / are very real. During the day & hard times folks would do what they had to do to make it to the next day that turned into weeks, months & years for some
Things I’ve seen:
Wood screws sunk into the middle of a tenon
Steel collar pressed around a tenon
Nails driven around the tenon
Tenon drilled out deep and larger dowel driven in the hole
Spacers/shims used around the fellow & tenons
Carriage bolts drilled through the rim and wood fellow & capped with a washer & bolt
More modern
Epoxy used to fill gaps at the tenon
Quick Poly injected around the rim & fellow
Quick Poly used to fill gaps in spoke & tenon
Lag bolts screwed into a missing or under sized tenon
Other crazy stuff
Spoke replace with oak spokes or other species other than 2G Hickory though there is some debate concerning Osage Orange as a substitute
Any other strange thing you’ve seen as a repair or “get by”?

Best John

[TWrenn]

Too much to read with my attention span so I'll chime in one word... VERY!

[Harvey Bergstrom]

In response to your question on loose tenons in your spokes, I will share my thought. When I got my ‘24 Touring, this was very much a concern as I discovered seven loose spokes at the tenons. My instinct was this. How soon will the other 41 spokes be coming loose also. I value my life & the lives of others in my car & those on the road I meet. Replace them & drive with peace of mind. Happy motoring when you get this done!

[Oldav8tor]

Your wheel is unlikely to fail when driving straight. The load applied in a turn or by a pothole might be enough to cause it to fail, especially if the tenons are rotten. I wouldn't chance it.

I've had good luck with Stutzman (‭(330) 897-1391) getting a fast turn-around. Call and leave a message and see what he has to say. Ditto for any of the other rebuilders.

I found this inspecting a wheel where the spoke was only a little loose. A couple of whacks with a rubber mallet and the tenon sheared right off. The photo on the right is what they are supposed to look like. I'm often surprised that people don't always seal the tenons on a new wheel with varnish or paint.