I'm droppin my 40 pickup and adding bigs and littles. Here is a pic of the truck now (whitewalls) and a photoshopped pic of how I want it to look when I'm done (blackwalls). Theme of the truck is very nostalgic (flathead, drop front axle, columbia rear, etc). Need help with wheel/tires sizes. Don't want too wide in the rear. Don't know if I should use 15's front and back or 15's front, 16's back or 16's alll around....and what wheel widths? ideas? I see alot of threads about tire/wheel sizes on fenderless cars but not many on fendered. It would be expensive to make mistakes...thx.
This is easy. Use stock later model 15" Ford rims that take the old '40 hubcap. Most will be 5" wide. If you're lucky ya' might find some 5.5". I run P165R15 front tires and P235/75R15 rears on all my '36-'40 Fords. These are radials. Here's a pic of '40 pickup with that set-up.
Thanks, how wide are those rear wheels? Got a larger pic? Did you ever try 16" wheels after it was lowered?
Never tried 16". I don't like the larger tires, especially when I want to run radials. On this truck I think the rears are 8" wide. I have a 9" Ford rearend that's probably narrower than a stocker. Don't know if I can post the other pics here. The files might be too large, but I'll try.
I run P165R15 front on 15x5 wheels, P285/70R15 rear on 15x8 wheels. The rears are about an inch or so taller and a couple of inches wider than the truck in the pic. If you are interested in 16 inch rear wheels, use P245/75R16 on 16x8 rims. Not quite as wide, but the same height as the P285/70R15 setup. I run them on my roadster, and they would work fine on one of these trucks. Sorry, I don't have any pics of my pickup......
My dad has two 40. one is running 560x15 and L78 in the rear... big rake and the other is running 165R15 and 225/75/15 but it now needs a 4" drop axle instead of the 3" it has
I failed to mention what I use as a guide for appearance. Measure from the shop floor to the highest wheel well opening. I shoot for 24"-25" in the front and 28" in the rear. The rear measurement is very critical because that's what establishes concentric radiuses between the opening, tire, rim, beauty band, hub cap, etc. If ya' don't nail that right, then everything else is for nothing. If the stance isn't right then everything else looks like crap. Everyone remarks how nice the stance is on all my old Fords. It takes a lot of work with spring leaves and shims to get it that way. But if ya' take two equal value cars with the same wheels and tires and miss the stance on one but get it right on the other, the correct stance car will always get the looks and be worth more $dough$.
Here's mine. 6.40x15 fronts 8.20x15 rears Stock Ford 15 inch rims. Extended shackles front and rear (3 inches center to center as opposed to the stock 1.5 inches center to center). Pan hard bars front and rear. Reverse eye springs front and rear. Stock rear end converted to open driveline. Mike
Hey, I was just thinking about some of these questions with my '46. What years had the same hubcap size? How new can I go with "later model"? Do you know what the diameter of the '46 hubcap was? I don't have any hubcaps right now -- I don't want to buy any until I know that I have the wheels that I want to run. Thanks for your help.
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