Hubs help

W

Weels

Forum user
Jul 27, 2011
13
0
London
Hello all, I have a car that is fitted with cougar drive shafts, stub axles and hubs (4x108 PCD) and for a number of reasons I'm having difficulty sourcing wheels to fit as the offsets are non Ford. What I'd like to do is fit the hub from the old Probe as it is 5x114.3 and therefore give me a much larger range of wheels to find. Can anyone tell me some info about the Cougar ie how many splines does the stub have, diameter, mounting hole arrangement of the stub to cv joint etc.

Many thanks,
Rob
 
As Si said, Dyg is your man! He has converted his to the newer Ford 5 stud as per the new Mondeo's etc. He is sporting ST220 wheels on his. To be honest there are thousands of wheel styles available on the 4 x 108 it's just finding some you like lol. The rears are a pain to convert, the fronts are quite straight forward.
 
Only one member on here (dyg) has changed the hubs so he could use the same stud pattern as the Mk3 Mondeo (don't know the figure).
He's got Mondeo Mk3 hubs on the front and some USA Ford (Windstar???) on the rear.
The conversion involved some sort of fabrication work for the rears.
He converted all his brakes to different components too which involved getting custom made hoses for the rear.

If you ask me, it's a lot of hassle.

Any wheel designed for a Mk1/2 Mondeo, early Focus etc with the 4x108 stud pattern will fit.
You don't have to stick with the same offset as the stock Cougar wheels (ET36?) as there's a useable range you can use.

Any decent alloy wheel dealer should be able to tell what ranges fit.
Have a browse in the pictures section to see the wide variety of aftermarket wheels fitted to our cats. It should give you some ideas.
 
Now I've figured it out which wasn't fun its a piece of cake mate you just need to get all the bits ready up front.

A full days work if you have all the right bits and help to hand.

You'll need a hydraulic press and access to a lathe as well

It's sounds from your post that you don't have a cougar but a car that's got cougar running gear?
 
Thank you all for the speedy replies and Dyg you sound like a wealth of knowledge on this subject!!
You're right in saying that I don't have a Cougar and I originally assumed I had Mondeo components throughout but I now know I have MMT6 box, Cougar shafts (longer than mondeo by 10mm ish) and 4x108 hubs???

It's a real mis-mash of Ford stuff and so I'm sure there's a way round it. The mk3 mondeo is 5x108 which I'm not sure will help me much, unless I can redrill those hubs for a larger PCD.
 
Failing a full conversion, you could get adapter rings made up to suit the wheels you want.
 
Yes I have considered that option too but I'm struggling with offsets already, adding another 20-30mm will rule out every existing off the shelf wheel I've found.
Plus I don't like the idea of leaning on spacers when on track.
 
Do you think there would be enough meat on the hub to redrill a 5x114.3 PCD if I were to convert?

If I can't get this to work, it seems my only option under about £1200 are Compomotive MOs
 
I don't think you redrill a 5x108 to the one you need. That could lose a lot of precious metal and compromise integrity.

Maybe custom hubs or the wheels you've mentioned. What car is it out of interest and what measurements to the arch do you have to play with. Might help with finding a solution as I know we have a few technical guys on here ;)
 
Really? I'd have thought drilling the hub in different places would have been perfectly safe, you guys don't agree? I'm not suggesting welding up the existing or anything, just using the areas between the 108 space for new studs.
 
Weels said:
Really? I'd have thought drilling the hub in different places would have been perfectly safe, you guys don't agree? I'm not suggesting welding up the existing or anything, just using the areas between the 108 space for new studs.
Click to expand...

But you'd need to extract the existing studs because at some point you'll overlap a hole.
 
Maybe I didn't explain that well, I'm suggesting converting to 5 stud and then pressing out the studs and drilling 5 new holes in 114.3 PCD. Therefore I'd have hubs with 10 holes but just 5 studs fitted.
Obviously I'd have to deal with the brake discs as well but that shouldn't be too big an issue due to what I'm currently running.
 
I would guess though, and only a guess, that if you drew or found a template of both PCD's and lay them on top of each other, you'll get an overlap due to the minor differences. If you drill out the metal between the 108's then you're taking away the metal that holds together the hub plate and reducing the strength. Thats why I suggested rings or maybe just a custom hub. For how much work it'd be converting, you'd be just as well going custom. Out of interest, any particular for the Japanese PCD requirement? The Probe's were Mazda's underneath and as such had Mazda running gear etc.
 
They wouldn't overlap, imagine you had a hub with ten holes in it, now just use five of them.... No overlapping.
I like the idea of custom hubs but where do you start? What sort of cost would be involved in having those fabricated?
 
They wouldn't overlap, as long as they were all equally spaced. I think what Kully's trying to get at is that because the PCD's are differently spaced then one set of holes won't sit neatly between the other - at some point you're going to need the same bit of 'real estate' for two different holes.
 
Yeah, Rich has it pretty much spot on. You'd probably want to utilise at least one existing hole to lessen the material you need to remove. That was how I looked at it. I see your point though, and unless it was made from the worlds strongest metal, I wouldn't trust it!
 
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