We are often urged to “think outside the box� which sounds good, but does anyone know what that really means? Simple solutions to simple problems are often elusive.
Scientists tell us that great musicians can actually visualize music as having color or shape. I am willing to bet that artists and designers have a way of visualizing spatial relationships that the rest of us mere mortals cannot comprehend. While you and I may see a pile of stone, others can see a building, a bridge or a wall.
I like to think that I have the ability to see a physical problem with an automobile and be able to visualize a solution. If a car needs a part that is no longer supplied by the original equipment manufacturer, I can usually find a way to adapt a part from some other car or to fashion something out of scrap metal or plastic to fill the need. I often wander through the local junkyard imagining how the trashed treasures contained within can be used to make some other car better. Will those seats fit in my car? Is that engine more powerful that the one in my daily driver? Will that body part make my car more aerodynamic?
But I am certainly far from infallible and although it does not happen often, from time to time I get stumped on how to overcome a problem when a car part has morphed from readily available to being made of solid “unobtainium.� Unobtainium is the materiel that an once obtainable part has become made out of once they cease to be made, or sold. I recently hit this car restoration wall when I needed a set of wheel center caps for my 1980’s-vintage Momo wheels on my 1987 Honda CRX.
Every wheel on every car has a hole about 2 inches across at dead center. This hole is necessary so that tire-mounting equipment can get a grip on the wheels and nudge the rubber tire over the metal wheel. On stamped steel wheels that many cars come with from the factory, a hubcap covers the entire wheel and so we only see the shiny cap which covers the lug nuts and the center hole. On styled wheels that are so popular these days, the lug nuts are often part of the design and so a small center cap is used to fill that center hole. Look closely at the next car you see with styled wheels; the car company logo is usually embossed onto the small center cap. If you lose this small cap, it usually can be ordered from the parts counter of your local dealer.
Finding a replacement center cap for an aftermarket set of wheels can be tricky. Wheel manufacturers feel no compulsion to stock replacement caps and as I have discovered, there are no generic wheel center caps available because there is no standard size for the wheel center hole. Usually eBay would be the best source for obscure, out of production bits and pieces but even this choice is no good to me, they just do not exist for my wheels.
The set of Momo wheels I have on my car were a relatively rare design that was intended for a racing series and not generally available to the public. I bought them used from a former racer without any center caps so I have no reference for what they should look like.
Normally not having a set of center caps would not bother me; I have been happily using the wheels for about three years now. My motto is From Follows Function; it is better to go fast than to look fast. But I must admit a creeping sense of pride welling within my consciousness about my car’s looks and so I have embarked to find a set of center caps for the wheels.
Momo no longer supports these wheels, generics do not exist and eBay had been a disappointment. So I had reached a dead end in my quest. No shop owner could suggest a solution and the Internet forums were equally stumped.
I causally mentioned my dilemma to a fellow car enthusiast at a local car meet and he offered me an elegant solution to my problem. He suggested sawing off the bottom of an aluminum beverage can and gluing it to the center hole. From a distance, the casual observer would never notice the ruse and if the job is done with care, it is possible to fool a more detailed inspection. It would never pass muster with the Judges at the Pebble Beach Concurs d’ Elegance, or the crowd at Hot Import Nights, but I do not plan on entering this car in any kind of seriously judged auto beauty pageant.
So I have a set of soda can center caps and unless I had not told you about it, you would have never noticed.