Let me say this up front. I love wire wheels. They are cool, retro, classy, a major part of what British sports cars are all about. Regularly taken care of, they will last virtually forever.
BUT, and this is the big part, if they are not regularly maintained, they WILL wear out. Some wear is to be expected and acceptable, but only after many, many years of service. If they are ignored, forgotten or abused, they will fail, resulting in loss of wheel, even possibly loss of life!
I like to say that the original owner/installer probably took regular care of them. The second owner might have done some maintenance. The third owner didn’t know the wheels came off. As long as no spokes were broken, everything was fine!
Rather than have to explain things one at a time, I figured I’d throw up some images!
I mostly have pics of questionable or bad splines, since good ones aren’t that interesting. In the future I will add some additional pics of good, OK, average and perfectly fine used splines, so this doesn’t look all like doom and gloom.
Also, here is a link to an excellent article in Motorsport Magazine about how it all works.
