Technical Universal steel wheels, is it me or do they suck?

So I'm approaching the stage where I need to put wheels on my project. I am definitely a fan of steel wheels and trying to decide between smoothie and artillery style for the Panel truck.

A little background on me:
I have never been a fan of aftermarket wheels, I worked as a line tech in dealerships for 11 years (6.5 of those for a Japanese brand during the fast and furious craze) so I've experienced more than my share of vibration and complaints from out of round, bent,lug centric vs hub centric issues and so on and so on. So even on my DD vehicle I stick with the OE wheels.

So wheel vintiques and several others make wheels with both 4.5 and 4.75 " universal" lug patters in the same wheel. Am I crazy to think this seems like offshore junk?
I know I could always try to find real vintage wheels but tough to actually find 4 that are in good shape and spin true and if your lucky enough to find them, it's an arm and a leg. I've got all my $ tied up in the engine and now a father so project for my 16 yr old.


Anyone else thinking like me ? what are your suggestions? What has worked? What hasn't?

 

What size wheels and in what bolt pattern are you looking for? Good OE steel wheels are very plentiful around here, I've never had a problem putting a set together.

 

Squablow, better grab up all those old steel wheels that are so plentiful there, because if the scrap price goes up again, they will be gone. Our local yards used to have huge piles of wheels until a few years ago. They invested in a wheel crusher that crushes the wheels to remove the old tires. All that remains is a pile of crushed wheels waiting for the scrap price to rise again.
Not many of the "new" cars share the old bolt patterns or offsets. Gene

 

I don't think that dual bolt patterns on a wheel mean it is necessarily 'offshore junk'. The dual pattern can serve all parties very well, unless you want to run without center caps, in which case they are less attractive.

For my money, the real issue is quality control for lateral and radial runout. If that is very good, what's to worry about? However, on that score, I have found 'offshore junk' common in trailer wheels. That is annoying, as a trailer wheels should be just as round and straight as an automobile.

Ray

 

The wheels on the Ranch Wagon are Wheel Vintique and they are the wheel you are referring too.

We have logged several thousand miles with no problems. HRP

 

I've got a couple hundred of them stacked up in the shop basement, waiting for me to build some wheel racks (probably this winter). Maybe I'm just lucky? In the past when I've tried to sell them, I have a hard time getting more than the cost of shipping for most sets.

 

I need 5 on 4.5 .....15" or bigger would work, bigger makes it easier to find tires but I am not into large wheels with no sidewall crap either.

 

So you'd buy em again HRP? I like the look just concerned about so many holes, probably paranoid but I haven't rode in anything with them (that I was aware of that is)

 

In a skinny minute.

BTW,see my avatar? they are the same wheels and are more than 20 years old and according to the odometer the have over 41 thousand miles. HRP

 

I would think that if there was a flaw or concern, it would have surely come up by now. I'm sure that info would be all over the Web.

 

Many OEM wheels have multiple holes in the lug bolt area. Buick, MOPAR and a few other had guide pin holes because they use wheel bolts vs wheel studs. Also, holes exist for hub cap clips on several wheel models....none of these are known to be prone to failure on that account.

Ray

 

The Studebaker crowd has been talking about flex cracking when using factory wheels with radials.

 

I've got the dual pattern wheels front and back on both my cars, a '31 Hiboy and a '40 Ford coupe, no problems with either. But I agree, the look would be awful without the baby moons and beauty rings

 

We are running the Vintique duel pattern wheels on my Wife's '54 Customline and have thousands of trouble free miles on them. The car has '57 Ford hubcaps on it so you don't see the wheels at all which is a good thing because I agree with you the duel pattern centers are ugly without some kind of cap to cover them even if it's a little moon cap just to cover the center of the wheel. On the advice of my tire guy I did check the runout on the wheels before I mounted the tires because he has had bad wheels from Vintique in the past and while Vintique did make it right it's still an avoidable hassle.

 

I've got chrome steel on my truck, not sure whose as they were on it when I got it but no problem. I really like the look

 

What about Wheels Vintiques OE style wheel that only has the one set of holes? the '62' series?

https://www.performanceplustire.com...re-cap-not-included/bp:5x120-7:of:+0:ws:15x6/

 

I've bought two sets of wheels off the H.A.M.B. One set I ended up taking to the dump. The other set I sold for less than I paid and disclosed the damage. I'm thinking I'll buy aftermarket or in person only now. I have a pair of wheel vintiques and them seem pretty decent.


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Are the "hot rod" steel wheels that Coker sells wheel vintiques? Curious because I saw that they'll mount and balance for free if you buy wheels and tires.


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I had Wheel Vintiques Corvette Rally wheels on a car and couldn't have been happier with them. I was able to pick my width and offset which was handy.

 

had several sets of vintiques on my O/T firebirds ( ralley I's and II's ) and never had a problem with them yet , and one car the present owner autocrosses it with them and no problems and they are 15 x 10's , the other cars are 15x8's the wheels meet SAE and Dot regs.

my brothers O/t 01 merc the Oem FOMOCO 16" rims the lugs pulled thru on one rim and several of the rims are showing signs of pulling thru , ( impact gun damage from what we determine ) now I find out there is a recall on some of the rims .

 

Have used numerous Wheel Smith and Vintiques. You can go broke buying OEM old Ford wheels trying to find four good ones in the sizes you want. Bent, leaky rivets, bad stem holes, etc. plus anything in 5" wide is pricey. My car had original wide fives on it and you could actually seen the wheel wobble with the rear end jacked up and in gear. I assume other OEM have similar wear problems from years of abuse, especially pickup wheels.

 

Buy 'em from Summit with free shipping. You are way over thinking the dual bolt pattern thing. Use '40 - 48 caps and move along. This isn't some new fad....they been around for 25 years or so.

 

I have owned both Wheel Smith and Vintiques ,no problems with either at all and if you need certain back spacing for your project they will build whatever you need.

 

I just got some 16" WV Gennie 14 series wheels and Excelsior tires ( 5.00 and 7.00) from Summit. 16x4.5 and 16x6.
They came with a really nice powder coat primer and I had them powder coated in Wimbledon white.

They mounted up and spun up on a Hunter road force balancer with no problems, only minimal weight needed on the rear wheels only.
The front wheels and tires required no balancing weights at all.

Who cares about the dual bolt pattern thing, caps will be over them anyway.

 

Larry,those look nice!

Are they painted or powder coated? HRP

 

Powder coated Oyster white (identical to Wimbledon white)

 

I don't like the dual pattern either. I am running mine painted black with no hub caps. Although a lot of people think I should run hub caps, no one has mentioned the dual pattern and I have surprisingly learned to ignore it.

 

They are ugly as sin without caps.

 

can you get 16x4, or 4.5 in a 5x5.5 bolt pattern from summit? Not in their catalog.

 

Check Stockton Wheel http://stocktonwheel.com/