Haha thats bad times hope you feel better soon

Whilst you won't neccesarilly feel any wheel wobble, it doesn't mean the wheels don't *need* balancing. Balancing wheels helps give a longer tyre life as well as adding to the comfort and enjoyment of the driving experience.

I balanced the wheels on my racer and it was immediately much more pleasant to drive as I lost any vibration from 50 to 70 mph.

I'm fully aware that I'm probably gonna get shot down in flames for this post but I'm only talking from my experience-both personal and proffesional.

TBH i might get them balanced anyway once i (sorry Harry) sort out the knocking noise may as well think it will only be a fiver or so.

As if John, as if

Louise

Probably more information here than you really need but here goes. A steel wheel is made up of two parts, a rim (the bit the tyre sits on) and the knave plate (the circular part which the wheel nuts do up against). To make the entire wheel, these are spot welded together. Over the passage of time, rust forms between the two and this will eventually cause a bulge of rust on the inside seam. The distance between the bottom of the upright (where the kingpin lies) and the wheel rim is very small so a sizeable lump of rust will clout the upright as the wheel turns.

At this point some drivers go and buy a new rim thinking anything else is a waste of money; others hammer the bulge, de-rust as best as they can, apply anti-rust primer and paint, and carry on driving. I am one of the penny pinching second lot

or perhaps a sensible safety measure?

and then spend every other day pumping it up. I'll take some photos of rims I've got that people have done this to...........................

As I mentioned elsewhere, I shotblasted a rim recently that had expanded there, once all the rust ang gunge was gone, I was left with a hole, bashing them out isn't really a long term fix. I admit, I've done it before though, I've had one tyre leak constantly and others be ok, but I've not kept a 2cv on the same single set of wheels very long.

Spanners

Nobody could accuse you of having/wanting the last word, could they? From what others have said to me, quite a few owners treat their rusted rims like this to get a bit more life out of them. I have. I'm sure Louise is grown up enough to make up her own mind now.

Having done this myself I'm inclined to agree (the bashing bit). I'm bored of it now and am investing in some new wheels.

It's scary to think that my life, and that of my passengers, rests on 4 bits of rubber, each half the size of my palm.

I really want those 4 bits of rubber to be attached to the most solid thing possible when they're spinning at 1,700 rpm-ish.

So new wheels for me

And probably some maths tuition too

Well for 45yrs I've been riding probably the most dangerous vehicle on the roads, a solo motorcycle, with a less amount of rubber on the road. If commonsense prevailed, I'd have given up riding years ago. OK safety has it's place but when I look at all the safety features in out Citroen C3 (numerous air bags, deformable structures, and so on) and compare this to the sixty year old design of our 2CVs, we would never get into one would we?

As with most things in life, it's about using ones judgement based on experience, advice and commonsense rather than fear.