Good Morning, I have a Full Fendered 1934 Ford 5 Window Coupe with stock running gear. I want to make it into a mild Hot Rod with a modified flathead and different wheels and radial tires, and rim widths, so that I can achieve a slight rake. and they must be able to fit inside the fenders. Does anyone have any ideas, and/or pictures? Thanks, Mike
Mine has a Posie's drop front spring with 195s in the front and 215s in the rear. Stock 15 X 5 wheels.
I've found that 255 70 r15 is about the max width that you can fender and the height doesn't leave a weird looking reveal. I have these mounted on my coupe on 15x8 solids. I'm not sure what the fronts are because they came with the wheels, which were given to me. I do know that they are 14's maybe 195 70. The fender I am using in this pic has a messed up edge bead so it doesn't look quite right.
I run the original American Torq Thrust II's on my '33 with 195x60r15 on the front and 255x70r15's on the back with no tire rubbing issues and my car is lowered quite a bit from stock.
Why do you need to run radials? Read Ryan's testimonial (Jalopy Journal homepage) on daily driving his '39 on bias ply tires today. Personally, I think they look way better than radials, especially for a car that looks very traditional. Also, I think 16 inch wheels are the best on these cars. I run 550's on the front and 750's on the rear of my tudor. You can run these tires on 4" wide rims. The only change in ride height on my car from stock is a reverse eye spring and about 3 or 4 leaves removed in the front. The front fender is sagging slightly in this pic, so take that into account too!
Are you going to stick with the original mechanical brakes? If so, the easiest "hot rod" wheels to simply bolt on would be '35 Ford 16" wires. They're only about 4" wide, but will take a tyre combo like qzjrd5's above, or if you must, Coker do similar-sized radials that look a little like bias-plies. You will need to use spacers if you want to fit 'solid' centre steel wheels - and then you start to run into problems with the studs not being long enough to get a good thread engagement with the wheel nuts.
i have 235-70x15 on the rear 15x7 wheeland 145rx14 on front narrowed 14x4 wheel, its in the weeds and rides great
If possible go to some shows and look at how similar cars sit (stance) and take some side pictures and note what size tires and wheels they used. I'd take a tape measure and check how far the fenders are from the pavement on some of them, so you know if you want higher or lower or just like they did it. Once you know what you are shooting for, get your front tires and wheels and see if the front is at the height you want. Once you are pretty close, jack the back of the car so the fenders are at the correct height to get the stance you want. Then measure what diameter tire will give you that height and also what width tire will fit the well. Measure your backspacing for the wheel and you should be pretty close.
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