Hot Rods Who is your "Go to" manufacturer of steel wheels?

Stockton Wheel Service

 

Do the original 40-48 ford/merc caps fit on the wheelsmith 40-48 style wheels?

 

I will save you all some trouble. These hoops are too small on the I.d. , I had to skim the centers and had planned on reinforcing the centers with added material. I bought a ring roller and rolled a .5x 1/8 strip of steel. strip were to be welded to the center and riveted to hoop. Things got busy and that’s where I stopped.

If the wheel balanced within reason , then this may be feasible, but there’s a bit of work needed

if I recall there was a kid offering rehooping services here but I’m not sure if he did something similar or was able to source a supplier to make the properly size hoop. May we could find a hoop supplier and pool some cash up to run the minimum lot size

 

I pulled a pair of Wheelsmith 16 X 4-1/2 Vintage wheels that I purchased from Speedway out of the box this morning. An original '40 V/8 hubcap snapped right on...

 

Good to know, thanks.

 

wheel smith great products fast service

 

so the vintage wheels sold through speedway are manufactured by wheel smith? And the OG caps work bc it says right on the speedway website the OG caps won’t work.

 

Wheelsmith makes their own caps. I wrote on the back of mine on my OT pickup. “Please put back on.. this cap won’t fit your Ford wheel”.

 

Off the shelf 16" aftermarket ID is 13.5". What is the exact OD of the OEM Ford centers?

 

Jimmy came up with these (inserts) for smoothies.... Jimmy had creative idea's and made some nice reverse style and other wheels.

 

Yes, the pair of wheels I received from Speedway last week were in Wheelsmith boxes; bare metal. And a pair of OG 1940 Ford Standard wheel caps snapped on. Maybe just a fluke... but the caps were on there tight enough that they're not going to come off while on the road. Just primed the wheels today; can get pictures after it dries.

 

Pictures of the wheels and hubcaps... having read that Wheelsmith wheels need to use their own hubcaps I was surprised when an original Ford cap fit

 

What is the best way to remove chrome from old wheels so I can have the centers rehooped?

 

Get a Chrome Shop to strip them, any other way just isn't thorough enough

 

Ok. Thanks

 

The above wheels won't take an early Ford cap ('40-'48)

 

The centers are more heavily stamped. Is nobody running the vented, early steelies with inside nubs anymore ?

 

Yes. Make sure the wheelman knows you want the nubs on the inside of the center. I forget the model number, but they are usually referred to as steelies (vented) while the unvented are called smoothies.