RyanPerrella

I just test fit the new 19" wheel on the front axle of the car. Looks good but there is one problem. The dust cap for the front axle sticks out to far, and may also be slightly to large in diameter to allow me to snap in the new center cap.

Is there a lower profile dust cap that i can use, probably something aftermarket, or perhaps from a different auto manufacturer? Again, the diameter seems to be too big and it also appears to stick out too far to allow me to fit the centercaps for the front wheels.

Any suggestions. I know i can just pound on the thing to make it more shallow, but i would just prefer to replace with something thats a better fit.

Anyone been here, done this?

hacker-pschorr

+

Randy V

E to the rescue.

RyanPerrella

here are some pics

RyanPerrella

I just realised that i now need new black nuts. Is there any sense in having mine anodized, or do i just buy new ones from vertex?

Or do I just paint them with rattle can gloss black and call it a day?

Randy V

Option 3

Randy V

Re the caps - search for similar topics.

Several have used a Dremel to trim the dust cap.

ZEUS+

Exactly, only trim as needed and dont drive cap in to deep or it will contact spindle and grind.

redpathtribe

Ryan,

What Zeus and Randy said. I had the same issue with the wheel center caps for the 19's on my GT. Decided I didn't want to try and pound the outside of the dust cap flat with a hammer, so I used a small pnuematic wheel cutter. IIRC I ended up cutting about 7-8mm off the dust cap flange and had no problem fitting concave wheel center caps after that.

Bill Ball

On my 89 the dust caps had a more pronounced dome. I just smacked them down flat with Hackers's option 1. There was still plenty of clearance under the cap above the spindle end. Your cap looks rather flat-topped already. You may have to do what Rick did - shave the open end of the cap.

Painting the lug nuts is a quick and dirty stopgap. It won't last long, at least with the paint I used.

redpathtribe

You're right Bill about the difference in the top profile of the dust caps. I really expected to have the "dome" top and was going to do some hammer time, but found the dust caps on my '90 GT looked just like the ones in Ryans pictures. Didn't look like pounding them flat was going to work on that profile, so ended up cutting down the backside of the flange.

RyanPerrella

The caps on mine are actually domed. But i can see it dosent appear so in the pics. I will pull the caps off and take some measurements and if i can simply whack away at the caps i will do that. I will also look for some different dust caps and see if i find something with a shallower dome and a smaller outside diameter.

JPTL

I don't know about other cars, but the caps on my GT were hard as hell. I would have had to pound the daylights out of them to get the cap shallower in order for the caps to fit the fronts of my Boxster S wheels (previous wheels). I was concerned about distorting them (mushrooming the base) if I pounded on them off of the hub. I really didn't want to hammer on the hub on the car that hard, so I took them to a machine shop & took off about 8mm. Then had the edges beveled a bit so that the caps wouldn't bind going back in. Ryan, in your case, I think that the diameter is probably fine - Porsche wheels/Porsche caps.
Based on how much that cap sticks out, you can probably get by with 8mm.
Don't go more than 10, however. The axle nut may rub against the cap. You really don't want metal shavings sticking to the bearing.

redpathtribe

Ryan,

Your caps are not domed like the ones Bill is talking about. Mine look exactly like yours, and while there is space (dome) above the "rim" of the dust cap, it is not radiused nearly as much as some of the others. After pulling mine off, it looked like if I hammered them down, the top would start to flare out (the material has to go somewhere) and cause even more problems with the wheel center cap and maybe even the wheel itself. Cutting the backside flange wasn't really that hard to do. I would imagine you could do it with a good hacksaw with a new blade with the cap being held in a vise if you had too if a cutting wheel or Dremel is not available.

RyanPerrella

thanks for the replies, but i am not sure i understand what exactly your cutting.

Do you remove the cap and take 8mm off the end that seats into the spindle? I guess i need to pull the wheel and have a close look at the spindle, but dosent the cap have a ring around it that when it contacts the spindle its fully seated? Or does the cap seat to a ridge inside of the spindle, if thats the case then i can see how cutting 8mm off the cap will allow it to seat further into the spindle.

I will take a look.

Where do i get that done, just the local machine shop, i assume you could cut it on a band saw yourself right?