My friend bought this Dodge Brothers cemetery van a few years back. Since then he has been wanting to find a set of bolt-on wire wheels, I helped him find something a little more unique but it required a fair amount of machine work. 5 Jaguar XKE wheels, knock off nuts, and a pair of front and rear hubs. 5x4.5 Flanges were made and welded on the rear hubs and the front hubs already had a flange so they were redrilled and strengthened. Here is the truck with the wheels installed: What do you think?
The restoration guys don't want peeling chrome and beaten knock offs on their restored E type Jags so you can buy the wheels pretty right. The issue is the hubs, new service replacements are around $150.00 a piece. The wheels, hubs, knock off nuts we used were purchased used for $380. The machining was the real expense but I'm glad we did it, I think it work out on this mid thirties vehicle. BTW: Corvette used some knock off wires in the sixties, the hubs would already have a 5x4 3/4 bolt pattern on the mounting flange. Same story, restoration guys want new so the crusty used stuff is affordable.
There are a few members on hamb that have Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering. You really should have that front end setup looked at by a pro. The working loads on the bearings, balljoints, etc, are now greatly multiplied by the extreme offset issue, and need to be adressed.
Nice looking Van. The wheels I have my doubts about, not the looks, but the strength and geometry. 1961 Jag XKE weighed about 2700/2800 lbs,, near equal weight distribution front/rear. I would guess the Dodge is at least a 1000 lbs more than that. You could have gotten wire wheels from a '50s era Buick/Olds/Cad or Mopar just as inexpensively for the same reasons and had a bolt on wheel, no welded hub risks, and had wheels designed to support a heavy vehicle in the first place. Hope it all works well over the long term.
Actually, a 61 E-type is closer to 2000 lbs. The early cars had fewer spokes than the later E-types, and were pretty weak. I built a vintage road racing E-type and ran the stock wires - ONCE ! So much flex you really didn't know which way you were going. Most racers using alloys or later wires. But my point is - these wheels are really too weak for the truck. Look great, but be careful - especially around corners........
Wire wheels actually 'hang' the vehicle weight from the upper spokes, contrary to popular belief that they are 'supportive', or 'in compression'. tms427 is correct... Corners? To see a graphic slow-motion would give you a stroke! Man, those damned spokes look like they're playing 'Musical ******s', everybody scrambling to find a seat before the music stops!
The XK120 and XK140s had 54 spoke wheels - 16" diameter. The XK150 went to 15" with 60 spokes which were carried over to the early Series 1 3.8 E Type and were subsequently changed to 72 spoke. The earlier wheels had a dished hub - called the 'curly hub' by Jagophiles. Later wires had non dished hubs....
Being a now-cured ex-Jag owner, I'll agree that those wheels are too light-duty for that truck. They'd be ok on a light fenderless roadster, but even the Jag guys ditched them if any sort of performance driving was anticipated. Known for going out-of-round, they need re-trueing on a regular basis. Even Jag gave up on them when the V12 XKE came out, they couldn't take the weight. Jag did some great engineering (their suspension is still a great choice for a rod), but you could find right next to a brilliant piece a bit that was so bone-headed that it boggled your mind. They used a cork float in the master cylinder for the brake warning light up through '88.... You can find later 'aftermarket' Jag wheels fairly cheaply due to bad chrome issues. When the XJS came out, customers complained about the lack of wire wheels so dealers had tru-spoke design/build sets for them, which they installed as 'optional equipment' (Jaguar refused to supply wires, but turned a blind eye to this). These are heavier-duty than the XKE wheels, but still suffer from out-of-round issues if driven hard. Bolt on too, with the 5-on-4.75 bolt pattern. Downside is they have a ton of backspacing (4.5" on a 6" rim if IRRC).
The rodder in me loves it. The mechanical engineer in me gives me reason to be concerned about the welded hub, and as Frank mentioned the added stresses placed on the bearings and front suspension points. Looks awesome, just keep a careful eye on those things.
There are some dangerous aspects to installing this type os setup on a car. X2 on the scrub radius. It is very likely not even under the tire anymore. Bet it is at least an inch or more inside the tire. That is some evil stuff on a slippery road or if one brake fails or grabs. Looks cool though. Austin Healeys used the same type wheel and spline and came with a bolt on spline hub for the rears and were 5 on 5 bolt patterns. When buying used spines and wires look closely at the splines. The pointed ends of the splines are suppose to be flat. If they are pointed like a knife they are worn out..a good test is to press on the splines kinda hard with your thumb and drag it along the top..if it cuts you, you know the splines is worn out. The same goes for the wire wheel splines too. You can also tell if the splines are going south if you step on the brake and hear a funny popping noise coming from the wheels..that noise is the wire wheel slipping in the splines(kinda like a ratchet) and not stopping the car which brings me back to the scrub radius deal. If the hubs are not installed in the proper position, when the splines start slipping the knock off will unscrew and the tire will exit the vehicle...I have seen this happen to guy who are unaware that the is a correct position, left and right for the spline hub. I will not put wires on any car I own for these and many more wobbly reasons. Your results may vary.
Okay, this isn't a REALLY old thread to resurrect, sooooo... I'd just note that wire wheels were common on much heavier vehicles back in the '30s, and while I can't speak to differences in construction and they were certainly a maintenance headache dependent on a fair bit of specialized care and feeding I can't imagine a much more severe use than two tons plus hammering around Brooklands at 150mph: or for that matter edging close to 200mph on the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans on various Ferraris and the first GT40s well into the '60s. As for the original poster's Dodge application, from the before/after pics it doesn't look like the scrub radius has changed significantly from the '70s-ish spun-AL-look wheels he had on there previously. Maybe neither setup has quite enough front offset (he's apparently got a very wide rearend in the truck, so you can't really use the rear as a datum) but I can't definitively make that conclusion from the pictures. Welding the hub...well, if done well and the flange is machined true afterward, I guess... And the wires definitely look good on the truck. I have a bit of a vested interest in the topic, as I'm starting to cut metal on something that borrows a few characteristics (alas, not a Napier Lion, but a healthy Ford FE should get close enough) from the vehicle in the picture above, should be right at 3000lb when done (easily match Napier-Railton power-to-weight but I'm not going to bet I can match John Cobb for testicular m***) and really has to have knockoff wire wheels.
The Metalastik mounts on the XJ rear suspension cage come to mind. Jack up the car and if the rear suspension is dangling from the exhaust pipes it's time to change the mounts. So, here's the real question: what defines the load-carrying ability of a particular wire wheel? Let's ***ume a steel rim. Anyone able to speak to rim weight/gauge, spoke count, gauge, lacing patterns?
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