Conserv

Yes, but.... a 4x98 will fit over 4x100 lugs, and vice versa. Thus, one of your binary results might be a “false positive”... Or is that a “false negative”? 😋😉😯 Best regards, Steve

And I have three, or four. We should pool our extras and ship them to places where PCD measuring tools are....under-represented.... 😉 Best regards, Steve

+1 Regards, Steve

I’m back in the Northeast, so I don’t drive the ‘76 from November through March on account of salted roads. If I also crossed out the hot humid months of July, August, and September, I’d only be able to drive the car four months of the year. Lots of owners tear out their A/C units. Most of them have never had those units operating for one day, and many more have never had their A/C operating fully and correctly. The A/C removers I’d want to speak with, if I were you, are those that lived with ‘02 A/C, which operated fully and correctly for at least a couple years, and then decided to remove it! Regards, Steve

+1 Labeled rims are certainly the best route, but they’re also rare, certainly well under half of the surviving rims retain their original paper labels. But, also, as I mentioned above, nearly 100% of un-labeled Campy’s in Italy are assumed to be 4x98. And no one in the country owns a PCD measuring tool....😉 And as I also mentioned, two of my rims — I bought all of my Campy’s in Italy — were advertised as 4x108, but both of these were 4x100. And two of the other four, coming off Fiats, were actually 4x100. Regards, Steve

+1 Yes, absolutely! And I went to great efforts — and, oh yes, expense, too — to have mine restored with gentle media blasting and correct painting by a fellow who specialized in restoring Campy’s and Cromodora’s for Ferrari’s. But I must admit that the majority of Campy owners I meet drop their Campy’s off at the powder coater — 400-degree oven be damned — and never seem to have any problems or issues. So I don’t know how much all this “magnesium sensitivity” is an unfounded leftover from the “good old days”, when “mag” wheels were mostly magnesium, not alloys.... Best regards, Steve

So if PCD is determined by the most recent car on which a rim was installed, that makes 100% of my six Ragno’s 4x98, because they were last on Fiats. But four of the six were 4x100 and only two were 4x98. Facts are so....annoying! 😉 As to models 40714 and 40571, both are, indeed, 5 1/2” rims. The 6” rims have their own model numbers and the dual usage of a single casting for multiple models may or may not apply. Regardless, there is never a downside to checking a rim with a good PCD measuring tool. I’ve found 4x98’s in too many places! 😯 Regards, Steve

Unless you’re more familiar with the Italian market than I, I don’t know if that’s true: I’ve seen these on more Fiats than on BMW’s. Campy’s are Italian rims, and their primary market was...Italy. I bought all six of my Ragno’s out of Italy (five now, as I gave up one so another Ragno owner could complete a set of five) in two, or was it three, tranches, where all had most recently served on Fiats. Yes, all six of mine were presumed to be 4x98 (if the owners even knew what PCD was!). Four of the six were 4x100, two of the six were 4x98, and two of them were advertised as 4x108.... 😯 Not a lot of careful measuring going on there.... 😉 I saw the “40714” cast into each rim and — wrongly, it turned out — assumed they were all model 40714 (4x100). I didn’t realize that Campy drilled the same blanks 4x100 for model 40714 and 4x98 for model 40571. All of this is why (a.) I bought a good PCD measuring tool, and (b.) had the two 4x98’s re-drilled to 4x100. A Campy in Italy is assumed to be 4x98. A Campy in Germany is assumed to be 4x100. But 66.67% of my Italian Ragno’s were 4x100. Is that a meaningful statistic? Hell no, but it’s something...😋 Regards, Steve

The B.A.T. auction will certainly provide some value guidance. The number of 4x98 fans probably equals the number of 4x100 fans, so any value differences attached to PCD are probably nil or negligible. If your set has the original paper labels, saying model 40714, you’re set. If not, have you measured them with a good PCD measuring tool? I say this because the first PCD measuring tool I owned had too much slop to clearly distinguish between 4x98 and 4x100. Regards, Steve

Ian, Just as a FYI, a tapered thread is not expected to thread 100% of the hole’s depth. You tighten it until it doesn’t leak. And then you stop. Given that there is a steel(?) insert, you could also re-thread the insert — as Uli has suggested — or replace the insert and tap it to whatever dimension and thread you find convenient (although I would probably choose a metric thread consistent with the cover and differential). Lastly, you could simply ship this “problem child” to me and I would return a factory-correct differential cover. Yes, you could make your problem my problem..... 😋 Regards, Steve

Thanks. Very cool! What else does Tom have stashed away? 😉 It has an October 1971 (“10.71”) manufacturing date, so...four years after 6-volt 1600-2 production ceased, there is still demand for replacement units. This suggests to me that there must have been quite a few of these units in service. Regards, Steve

Interesting, Dan, and an old thread, from 2006, suggests they may or may not have been available at that time. I’m now guessing they produced a batch of these at some point in the last 15 years and that 2014 inventory might have been the remnants of that batch... Well, maybe.... Best regards, Steve

It’s somewhat complicated, particularly because Campagnolo used the same 5.5” castings — all with model number 40714 cast into them — for both the 4x98 PCD model 40571 (Fiat) and the 4x100 PCD model 40714 (BMW and Opel) rims. The definitive model number was only reflected on a paper label applied to the barrels of the rims, and now often missing. I’ve written about this before, recounting my discovery that two of my six Ragno’s (now five) were 4x98 and four were 4x100. I had the two 4x98 rims re-drilled to 4x100, but the whole process was a bit surprising (hint: if you use the term “magnesium alloy” around older, more experienced wheel restorers, who recall the almost purely magnesium rims of the 1950’s-60’s, they will believe they’ve heard “high explosives” and will point you towards the door....😯). If the paper labels are missing, and you don’t have a good PCD measuring tool — a good one is, say, $20 — I have a subtle visual hint to distinguish the 4x98’s from the 4x100’s. When they drilled for the lug holes, the 4x98 rims took a slightly larger “slice” out of the protruding center hub, because the opposing lug holes were 2mm closer. The first photo shows an original 4x100 rim. The second photo shows an original 4x98 rim. Notice the relative slices removed from the protruding center hubs. The freshly-drilled lug hole insert reveals I took the photo after the re-drilling of the two 4x98 rims. The third photo shows a factory paper label. To be clear, this label, designating a model 40571 rim (4x98), appeared on a rim with a model number of 40714 cast into it. The paper label trumps the cast-in number! Either way, you can have the rims re-drilled to the PCD you need — my guy charged $50 per rim for the two I had re-drilled. Just don’t use the word “magnesium” unless you are asked point blank. And...if I recall, the original rims all have steel inserts for the lug holes. So the wheel restorer is not messing with any magnesium alloy. He is, rather: (a.) pressing out the original steel inserts, (b.) pressing in new steel inserts, and (c.) drilling the new inserts to the correct PCD. See, it’s easy! Regards, Steve

Dan, For the tii? The tii exhaust manifold heat shields, number 8 in the attached RealOEM.com listing, were NLA for nearly four decades. When I scored an NOS example in 2014 for my ‘73, it was a big win. Ray Korman, himself, saw it and said, “Wow: that’s a rare piece.” One of the parts houses — Roger’s tii, perhaps — shows them on their website but has none in stock. RealOEM.com doesn’t list the part or its number. If they’re back in production, I suspect the supplies remain spotty. http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=2583-USA-10-1972-114-BMW-2002tii&diagId=11_2399 Best regards, Steve

So, Hal, does that 1967-dated tach date to the 6-volt era (up to August 18th, 1967) or the 12-volt era (August 18th, 1967, and later). I’m now curious whether there are 6-volt tachs out there. Both the 1966 and 1967 clusters may have been diced and sliced. The cluster bezels for the 1966, 1967, and the first month-or-so of the 1968 model year were silver from the factory, not black as here. Stated differently, from March 1966 until October-ish 1967, the bezels were silver, as below, from a July 1967 brochure. Or have both been painted flat black post-factory? And is the silver-dollar speedometer dated October 1969 (“10 69”)? Regards, Steve