I'm wondering about rim width for 165r15 tire, thinking about getting some different wheels for the front and wanted to see what folks like. I'm running black steel ford wheels front and rear with radial whitewalls coker brand.
This is probably the best choice. Volkswagen put them on a 4" wheel. If you try to go too wide, you'll have problems getting the tires to seat on the rim.
Actually, original equipment on VW was a 5.60x15 for many years, then a 155x15 after. In either case, I have run 165x15 personally for many miles both on VWs and hot rods on rim widths ranging from 3 1/2" to as wide as 6" with no issues ever.
What wheel do ya'll like? I just have 90's ford steel wheels on the rear currently and 48 F1 truck steelies on the front that have been narrowed to 3.5". I was looking at artillery wheels and some cragar steel smoothies- pretty much what my wheels look like-
So 4-5" wheels will work. Seems that 15x5 steel wheels are more easy to find different styles in than the 4" widths.
O/T wheel but here are 165's on a 4" wheel. They fit best on a 4" wide wheel and are about the same size as the old VW Beetle tire & wheel. These tires are now on 4" wide Cragar SS's.
Agreed! Anymore and you're stretching the sidewall out making the tire unsafe and could pop the bead on a hard corner. Look again at the photo and you'll see that the tread and sidewall are at their proper profile.
The 15x4 wheels are hard to come by though. or so ive searched around for them a**** most wheel makers and all. I do have a set of the centerlines like above, some really old ones off my dads 68 chevelle skinnys up front and 15x10 rear wheels. I was going to run them originally but changed my mind and wanted to do steel wheels of some sort. Im still in the build stage and roll around.
I run them on 5" wheels on my 36' and never had an issue. My bug has a 5.5 and still no issues. Not too sure where the some of the above posters are getting their basis.....
was looking at wheel vintique's site. Im thinking either artillery wheel or buy just 2 wire wheel for the front and run the old steelies on the back. 15x4.5 wire $199 each- the 15x5 artillery bare is $119 ea, where the 15x4 bare artillery is $159 each. I think they are getting over on folks wanting the narrower rim.
I have an old Cooper Tire brochure that says 165R15 "approved rim widths" are 4.0" to 5.5". Factories are conservative (lawyers), so a little outside that range would be OK I'd think. I have a pair on some 5" wheels for my project. I haven't driven it yet, but they look right.
Rim width, within reason, doesn't increase the likelihook of unseating the bead. That's caused by severe underinflation, and can happen then regardless of rim width. The only thing a wider rim does is it causes the sidewall structure of the tire to work harder in turns, and in a radial tire it causes an increase in the lateral stiffness of the tire relative to a narrower rim at the same inflation pressure. A tire with poor structural quality could fail when mounted on a wider than normal rim while the same tire might survive on the narrower rim. Tires from any of the major tiremakers aren't going to have any structural problems on wheels a couple inches wider than the recommended width, but that doesn't necessarily extend to manufacturers who produce tires to a cheap price point or to those who produce tires with the main criteria being a certain physical appearance.
i like the motorcycle rim/tire look on the front but have no clue how to do it. Spindle mount And add a disc brake either.
old dead horse; but good info Coker Cl***ic 2 1/4 Inch Whitewall - 165R15 Tread Width: 4.62 Section Width: 6.50 Overall Diameter: 25.25 Load Index: 86 Speed Rating: S Max Load Capacity: 1168@35PSI Rim Width: 4.50 - 6.00 Tube Type or Tubeless: Tubeless
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