Just picked up a whitewall grinder. Got it in a trade for listing a couple tire machines on eBay for a friend of mine. It works great. Now I just gotta make some dust. Ah I love the smell of burnt rubber in the morning........
In my best Peter Griffin voice..."That doesnt make breakfast at all, it just shoots you" Haha...I would too love to see it go as I dont see how it even works! Id love to own one tho, makes any tire a good candidate for grinding being it produces even strokes.
I had a friend who's Dad had a used car lot back in the 70's. He used to buy fleet cars at the auction all the time and then make his kids convert all the blackwalls to whitewalls on Saturday mornings. Was kinda neat to watch, was probably a pain to have to do all the time.
There was a shop in Export, Pa. that one of those and would grind your tires for you, cheap. Been a few years since I had any done there though.
Not sure what this machine does... I would guess it can make a thin whitewall into a wide white, but wouldn't you already need a whitwall tire? I mean to say, blackwall tires don't have a layer of white rubber in them, do they? From the comment above, it sorta implies they do?
You know, I think they ground them, and some they poured white in, as I recall, but a lot of them had white under.........I know they weren't doing wide whites in the 70's.
I think most any tire with any sort of white stripe around it or with white letters has a wide strip of white rubber around it.
The raised white has nothing to do with it, when I ground my goodyears, I ground the raised white letters flush with the rest of the whitewall. Probably not wide I dont know on the michilins. I know the firestone rwl I did the white stripe wasn't concentric with the tire.
Got a Cosmos G3000 if anyone is interested. Supposed to be the real deal, the old boy picked it up years ago, didn't even know what it was. All the bits and pieces are there. Let me know if you are interested, probably be a nice addition to a 'rod shop.
Actually, that thing doesn't look all that difficult to build for yourself. Looks like a "Y" and "Z" axis adjustment for adjusting the grinder motor to correct location, built onto a mainframe. Add a slow speed "scrubber" for tire rotation, or do that by hand. One would have to use a batch of adapters for different wheels, or maybe adapt a bubble balancer cone for wheel placement. Might just be worth exploring........... Roger
I was told by my friend that cooper cobras have a pretty trued white rubber layed out on their tires. he did that on an old set for his 59 chevy pickup. looked freakin good on it.
i did a set of white letter tires by putting them on toyota rims. jacked up the p.u. and ran it in first gear. then went at it with an angle grinder! danger is my middle name!
i ran one of those years back...most tires have a white wall hiding just under the surface, in which case you just easilly grind them out....on other tires you grind into the sidewall, just going far enough ,but not to far as you will cut the cords..then you lay in the strips of whitewall ,then put the steel cover over it inflate the tirs ans let it cook at about 300 degrees till it is done...very dirty and real hot,,and if you get the cord you make junk
ok back in the day i was wanting some denmans for my lowrider. I had some that had a thin white wall. I found a guy in north chicago doing this with that same machine that old man told me all black tires do not have white under the sidewall so no you cannot do black walls they must be white walls or white raised letter tires. Now i do know that the tires must not have the rim on it. Just the tire. If i recall the tire is mounted on the machine then there is another round plate that gose around the tire on the top to simulate a rim then he aired it up. So now it look like a mounted tire. The bracket that has the rubber turns the tire while you start the grinding motor and grind the white wall. You measure the thickness of the white wall with a caliper and then know you have the measurement of the white wall you will do on the other tire or tires. I asked that old man hey when you retire i want to buy that machine. He laugh out loud and said you will have to take a number. I bet that machine went to the junkyard for scrap. Knuck from indiana.
problem is that there not legal in almost all states...where can you cut a sidewall and get away with it
I never knew that there was a law against this. People do all kinds of stuff to there cars that people might think its ilegal. Hydraulics, air bags, flame throwers and not to mention sound equiptment that blows out ear drums. The truth of the matter is back in the day we lowriders guys would have 14 inch Denman bias ply tires with cut white walls hitting 20 inches and back then that was a hell of a lot of INCHES just the air pressure on them tires was nuts and never blew one tire out!!!! Knuck from Indiana.
The white layer on Michelins is very thin, and not much wider than the white stripe itself... The big raised white letter Dunlops work well, and I hear that the Pep Boys house brand does too.
There was an old guy at Paso every year in the 80's and 90's with one of these that would do this while you waited in the parking lot at the Old Paso Robles Inn. He did three of my cars in as many years there. Wonder what ever happened to him? He's probably in his late 80's or 90's by now...As far as I know, it's legal in Colorado, we have lots and lots of guys running them here.
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