Shaved White Walls..... Yes/No

I know how to do it, don't need a tutorial.

Question is, how do they look? Good/shitty??? Safe????

Thoughts?

 

I think the results are largely dependent on the skill of the individual doing the work. Since you already know how to do it, it would be reasonable for you to expect good results.

Bob

 

they look great from about 20 feet.some better

 

Friend of mine did his 54 chevy truck and did an awesome job....it did take him about an hour and half for each tire

 

We used to call them 50/50's

Looks good at 50 MPH and 50 feet away.

 

The quality of the whitewall should be equal to the quality of the car.

 

Good way to get wide whites cheap............

 

Wow, how many naps did he take during each wheel?

 

I don't like whitewalls

 

Here are mine... notice that where the white rubber joins it's not a smooth joint. At about 7 oclock. And of course the givaway is that the white rubber does not extend to the rim.
I've driven the car some and no one has ever called me on it. I don't think (outside of here) many would even notice.

 

Someday it would be nice to have a set of Firestones... but I got nothing $$$ in these tires, they were on the car when I got it. They were 1" wide whitewalls, but for now they'll do just fine.

 

Dude, they look f-in great!!!! Did you start with 80 grit, then hit them with on lighter to finish?

Nice man!

 

OH, has it ever been determined if it's unsafe????????

 

Bingo.

 

this tire guy co worker of mine told me that its unsafe beacuse youre shaving off rubber off the sides which weakens the tires...

thats what a tire guy says...

i says.... if it looks good why not? besides its not like ur digging too deep into the ribber... ur just shaving off a thin top layer right? i dont think ive heard any unsafe results from doing this.

 

theres good info in a few threads on the safety issue. just search shaved whitewalls

 

The tire guy is correct.

There is no reason to compromise the integrity of one of the things that keeps you safe on the road. There are enough idiots in normal cars on the road that I like to know that I have done everything in my power to be as safe as I can and to avoid an accident. Think about what would happen if the tire you just shaved and maybe hit a cord (that you can't see) or bubbles up while driving your car blows out while doing oh about 50 (I'm being conservative here)on a freeway? The damage to your car and possible damage to yourself is worth the money for the proper tires.

Its like having seat belts and not wearing them.

 

I worked for a car dealer 25-30 years ago and there was always the guy coming around with the sidewall machine to do the used cars.

Back then there were a LOT of cars coming in on trade with mis-matched whitewalls. You would have 3 tires with 1.5 inch whitewalls and 1 tire with a 3/4 inch whitewall. His machine made pretty nice work of matching them out.

And these were cars that were going right on a major dealer's car lot. I was always fascinated watching this guy jack the cars up and match out the tires...

 

I paint mine. There's a place or two that sells the stuff specifically for painting walls onto tires. Just gotta clean em good and take your time. I'd never shave my tires.

 

I just cleaned mine, they look like shit.

 

I can see where the shaving issue could prove to be a safety issue... I used the original white wall to determine how deep to go, if you look carefully at the whitewalls on my car you can still make out the original line, so presumably they are as safe as the original whitewall was..
The rubber you are taking off is a mask of black rubber over the white band, there are no cords in that layer.
But Hey! you go too deep you're going to have issues, it's that way with a lot of things in life... My car has the original flat 6 so I won't be doing 70mph, or spinning the tires too much.
I'm keeping an eye on them and haven't seen any bubbles, splits or cracks. The tires are not old tires.
I used 80 grit on a d.a. to tidy up at the end.

 

And another thing!

Every manufacturer uses a differnt process of doing the white band, some are fairly uniform and others are defintely not!

If I were to blow one of these tires it would be virtually impossible to "match" the whitewall with another tire if I couldn't get the same tire and run.

Then it's $1200 for a set of cokers.

 

most tires that have a small whitewall are only 2 ply when you star shaving them you take off about 1 ply off, that doesnt sound very safe to me besides they dont look good and it will eventually turn yellow. your goint to spend at least 200.00 dollars for a set of tires, save your money and buy the real thing.

 

Anyone in Phoenix want to grind mine ???

 

I've put about 40k on mine. no problems here. uniroyal tiger paws.

 

So you are saying that small white wall tires are 1 "ply" at the whitewall?

I got to BSing with a local tire shop owner about this, we went into the back and he cut up a cheap warranty radial whitewall tire he had in his shop with a band saw. (He didn't have a bias ply on hand) You would have to grind a long time to cut far enough to get to what he called the body plie strands. While he stated he certainly wouldn't warranty a tire someone shaved the sidewall on, he said if you were hit something that was going to cut the sidewall enough to get into the body plie and blow the tire the mil you took off in shaving wouldn't save your ass. His shop had a whitewall cutting machine back when his dad owned the place and that is how they used to do wide whites for decades.

 

Is this what Diamondback does to their tires?
Wonder what their legal dept. says?

 

heard it was standard for years and if the material is kept to a minimum, should be no problem

 

Mine are still as white as the day I did them. Westley Bleche-White works wonders!