Mehelich pin drive wheels

Any one running any of these Mehelich pin drive wheels.
Have not seen any on any rods in any of the books.

 

I've never run across a set of those. But, it wouldn't be too hard to convert bolt on wheels with a set of Trigo hubs and 3 bar spinners. All that's missing from the equation is a readily available and suitable pressure plate.

I saw a nice pair of bolt-on Mehelich's somewhere on-line just the other day.

Charlie

 

From what I can gather, the original Mehellic patterns were sold a few times and are now the same basic casting that are Chinese made and sold as "Halibrand influenced" on E-Bay. Hotrod49 here on the board has a set on his '49 Chevy truck, and I really like them, personally. I have heard negative about them as well, but I think it has more to do with the current country of manufacture than anything else. It also seems the people disliking them don't know the "back story" of how they came about. To me they look a bit more like a E.T. III type mag than a Halibrand. They were quite high dollar back in the late eighties and early nineties when they were first out.

 

Yep, After a few 99 cent Coke High's some really nice ET III were sacrificed!

 

Yes, the Mehelichs are more a copy of ET-III's than Halibrands, and the current Chinese version are almost identical. I had some of those when they first came out and thought the alloy was off kilter...they polish up okay but they just don't have the right luster. And they are taper seat wheels with recesses between the pattern on the back side. Makes it difficult to change patterns.

I spent a whole winter sanding and polishin a set of ET-III's about 25 years ago and ran them on my '40 convert for a long time. They were porous as hell though.

Charlie

 

I had a set of those on a fibergl*** 33 coupe I used to have. The hubs bolt on the oem lug studs and the nuts that secure them are round with a smaller hex for tighting. Those nuts serve as the pins. This was 18 years ago and the aluminum on these polished up great and the knock offs were an alloy that polished up with a golden tone. Looked good. These whels were on the car when I traded it to Bones. I've seen the car since then but not the wheels.

 

My set polished up very nice and rich looking also, I believe the knock off was made of Bronze White or White Bronze. I have several set's here, some were the true knock off that we had the "hat" milled off of and made into bolt on's. They were a very heavy wheel but nicely machined..................