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Does anyone know if anyone sells a complete front suspension rebuild kit for the 3.8S, including bushings tie rods, ball joints etc., or must I buy the items separately. Also I would like to clean up and repair the 5.5 X 15 inch chrome curly hub wire wheels that are on the car. The chrome on the rims and hubs is good, but some spokes and nipples are missing and some are rusty. Does anyone know who sells replacement chrome spokes and nipples, or even polished stainless steel spoke and nipple sets for these wheels. I'm on a budget and don't mind working on the wheels myself to keep the car original and not spend the money on a new set of chrome wires. Thanks, Mike in Colorado.

You can buy this front suspension kit. Rest will have to be individually. As you are in the US Dayton Wheels can help with spokes & nipples or Motor Wheel Service UK ~ MWS . Barratts is usually able to get backorder stock in a few days.

https://www.sngbarratt.com/English/#/UK ... 20front%60

Rebuilding wire wheels is a pain and before you start spending any money on nipples and spokes do your sums.

I bought a second hand set of chrome wire wheels off EBay a couple of years ago at a bargain price of £180. Came with five wires, one the spare was in perfect condition and the rims on the other four were really good and would clean up. Two of them had spokes missing and some that were rusty but having counted the spokes I knew I had enough good spokes on the most damaged one to replace all the missing and damaged spokes on the other three to give me a really good set of four.

I bought a spoke spanner and having soaked the spoke nipples on one wheel with penetrating fluid I sat down on a sunny day and proceeded to snap the spoke spanner. Bought another spoke spanner which looked more robust and a couple of days later sat down again and proceeded to snap the first spoke I tried to undo. The next I managed to undo but closer inspection showed I had managed to strip the thread on the nipple. The third a long one I managed to get undone correctly but could not remove it from the wheel because of the way they had been laid which meant undoing two of the short ones and I managed to snap one of those.

Ok I thought I will just buy new spokes and nipples. I contacted several companies and I think I needed fifty spokes in total to replace all the rusty and missing spokes on the four rims. Long spokes are £9 each the shorter ones are £6 each. I think the total cost was in the region of £350 nearly double the cost of buying the wire wheels in the first place. I then thought about balancing the wheel as I am not a wheel right and do not have a device to spin the wheel other than on the car to get it to run true. Replacing one spoke possibly two maybe but I was basically going to have to rebuild these wire wheels and then have to send them off to an expert to have them balanced and trued.

In the end I sold the damaged wheels back on EBay for more than I had paid for them and I put that money in to four brand new stainless steel wire wheels from MWS. I then sold my original painted wire wheels for a good price and I think after all this the new wires wheels cost me around £300 when the sale of the others were offset against the cost.

To sum up there is no way of rebuilding your original wire wheels on a budget. Let someone else have the hassle and buy some new ones using the money you sell your old ones for. Just my opinion having tried it.

Wise advice especially if you have rust. If you take a wheel to MWS or a wire wheel rebuilder the first thing they will do is cut out all the spokes. Examine the hub & rim. If serviceable put them in a cleaning cabinet & re lace the wheel with new spokes & nipples ~ true & tension. Rechrome before if necessary. or repaint afterwards as necessary. On painted wheels you can save some money going this route. If hub & rim need rechroming you might as well buy a new wheel.

Nipples should be removed or tensioned with a large cranked split edged screwdriver/nippledriver with central protrusion for easy alighnment. And I mean large & fully cranked. Not a bicycle wheel semi cranked screwdriver.

Rebuilding the wheels myself sounds challenging at best. I'm thinking of scavenging some spokes and nipples from my spare wheel, which might have minor damage to the outside of the rim and might not be rebuildable. That way I'll have some good spokes and nipples to use on the other four...maybe. Any sources for a good sturdy nipple wrench?

Your thinking is the same as mine was but having tried it I would not recommend it.

You can first of all try and remove some of the best spokes from the damaged wheel as I did but expect them to be well and truly rusted in.

If they were stainless steel spokes and nipples I would say you have a fair chance of removing them.

If they are painted mild steel less than fair.

With chromed spokes it is touch and go as they are mild steel which has been chromed and when you insert the thread into the nipple you basically tear off the chrome leaving them mild steel and exposed to the elements.

I did not have the screw driver thing that Glyn has shown and as I said previously I broke my first nipple wrench and had to buy a better second one but this was still not really man enough for the rusted in nipples.

This is the second one I bought. It is more designed for motor bikes than car wire wheels. Even though this one turned the nipples I found a lot of the spokes just snapped as I tried to get the nipple to turn they were that solid with rust. Eventually this one broke and I ended up getting a long 6mm spanner that I ground out slightly to get the correct size to fit the nipple. If I remember correctly a 7mm spanner was too big and the 6mm too small.

This wrench might work as it is designed for MG wheels with a 1/4 inch Whitworth jaw so not sure if it will fit the Jaguar nipples.
https://mossmotors.com/spoke-wrench-wire-wheel

All the pros work from inside the rim with cranked drivers like the above on the head of the nipple. The size of a single size wheel brace. None of them work on the outer faces of the nipples. I have no idea where they get those cranked drivers. MWS could tell you. They are what is used on the production lines unless there is now some sort of powertool. They lace a wheel very quickly. I guess if you do it every day practice makes perfect.

I guess we know this to be true.

http://shop.mwsint.com/productslist.asp ... &pagenum=1

Have a look at this site.

https://www.pointsunknown.com/blog/2015 ... oval-tool/

It is talking about making a tool as described by Glyn but for a bicycle wheel. With a bit of ingenuity I am sure you could make one up out of a small chisel which could be mounted into a drill or impact driver or even just a socket.

It's a long time since I went through MWS

But their tool at the time looked like this Stanley Drill but no chuck & an end nipple driver as below.

There is a local Wheel shop here in Denver that has been around for a long time. I might go over and speak with them before I start fabricating a nipple tool and destroying my spare wheel. Part of me wants to try this, but another part wants to simply write the check for new ones.

I looked at the listings that were recommended for the front end rebuild kits and it appears that there are three options. Standard replacements (that currently are out of stock), black poly bushings, and red oily bushings. If ever I finish restoring this car, I plan to drive it in a spirited fashion, so one of the two stiffer poly bushing kits is probably what I'm after. My question is which one? Are the red ones even stiffer than the black poly ones, and if do, has anyone installed the red ones and can comment on the quality of the handling and ride? I'm after a taut suspension on this car and handling as precise as I can reasonably get.

And thanks everyone for all the advice on the wheel building. You all have been very helpful.