safety Rims

[Dennis_MN]

At a show a couple of years ago one spectator pointed out that my rear rims were not original to the truck. They must have been aftermarket snow tire rims. The difference I asked? "Mopars had the safety rim with the extra lip so that if you had a flat the bead would stay on the rim." So yesterday I took off the spare from underneath the bed and it was the correct rim but the tire was a 6.50 x 16 so to make it fit, in was deflated. Great spare!

So I need to find one 16" safety rim with hubcap clips. I'll put one of the snowtire rims as the spare. If anyone in the Milwalkee area has one, I'll be at the Waulkasha show with Merle on Aug 9th. If I don't hear from anyone, I'll check with French Lake next week.

Here are pictures of my rims, bad and good.

[Young Ed]

Dennis I can't quite tell in the picture but do the little gaps between the center and the outer part of the rim match? I wonder if you just have some earlier 16s from perhaps a 30s car on there.

[grey beard]

Whilst at the Macungie show last month, someone came up and told me that my rims were not matching. All are sixteen inch and all have clips, but only this guy was able to notice that two of my rims have smaller spacces between the center section and the rim than the rest. I never noticed this until he pointed it out. The other three match.

My solution is to put the two matching on the right side, and the remaining three on the left, where my sidemount rides. Then they will all match, insofar as the eye goes. Don't know what this difference signifies. All mine are MoPar safety rims. They just don't all match perfectaly. They are the five rims I got with the truck when I bought it. Go figure . . .

[Young Ed]

Somewhere along the way in wheel production they switched to the different gap. We ran into this when finding wheels for dads 40 ply truck. Then we had 5 with a matching gap and picked up the 5 freshly painted rims to bring in for tires. Put all 5 in the truck at once and 2 were taller! DOH so we had to find 2 more to end up with a set of 5 matching ones.

[Dennis_MN]

Wow, I never noticed that difference in gaps, now I really will have a job finding a rim. I'll need to drive the truck out to French Lake Salvage to compare before I buy.

[Young Ed]

Dennis luckily there are pretty much only those two styles. I have seen one or two with 3 gaps instead of 4 but those would be easily weeded out.

[Dennis_MN]

Made the trip to French Lake Auto Salvage yesterday and found one 48 Dodge automobile with the back wheels still on. There were no Dodge Pickups in the entire place that I could see and I walked quite a bit of it.

However I did get a wheel off a Dodge Car with the slots width and the safety rim feature and paid $35 for it. Then I noticed another difference, the trucks used studs and and the cars used lug nuts so there were no holes for that little mounting aid that sticks out of the truck hub. Not a problem because I'll use it on the front where I have disk brakes and use lug nuts.

Off to get it sandblasted and then I'll apply my $30 paint. Looks like one finished wheel will cost about $100 bucks by the time I'm through.

Never thought it would be difficult to find a 16" rim.

Reminds me of the time I restored a model A with solid rims, took me all summer hunting old trailers with spoke wheels on them.

[Dennis_MN]

I've been busy cleaning up my rim. Sandblasting proved to expensive so I'm using my wire wheels on it.

The inside marking says:

Bud Rim 16 x 4.00 L44755-E-1 4 46

Is this a correct rim for a pickup or should it be 4.50 wide?

I know that the cars used lug nuts so this one doesn't have the extra holes for that little stud holder thingy while you put the studs in. I'll mount it on the front where I have the disks and use lug nuts.

Dennis

[KJ's Dodge]

Les Schwab Tires has a program for sandblasting and powder coating rims via their corporate program. I find out about the program via my cousin who has managed a number of their stores. He said it costs around $30 per rim which beats the heck out of DIY. That is what I plan on doing with my rims.

Just thought you all should know.

KJ

Edited August 6, 2009 by KJ's Dodge