TheSamba.com :: View topic - Wheel/Tire FAQs-Wheel/Tire questions/answers? Start here!

Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:41 am

I am running P165/45R15 up front and P195/50R15 in the rear.

Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:01 pm

Hot dog that's LOW!!!! You scrapin pan with that Thing???

Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:24 pm

GI Joe wrote: Hot dog that's LOW!!!! You scrapin pan with that Thing???
no, but it is real close!

Tue Nov 08, 2011 1:20 pm

Hopefully someone can answer this for me. I am running 15x7 Fuch's on my thing with adapters. Well the rears stick out way too far. The narrowed beam in the front makes everythign fine up there, but the rear is basically sticking out of the fender. I have disc breaks up front and factory drums in the rear. Does anyone know if they make a drum with the Porsche bolt pattern for the rear so I can eliminate the adapters back there?

Here is a little video that kinda shows you what I mean
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v610/lowbimmer/?...03_372.mp4

BTW I have some 205/50r15's to replace those 165r15's in the back

Tue Nov 08, 2011 4:10 pm

Looks PERFECT to me. :lol:

Fri Dec 23, 2011 4:59 pm

nawie181 wrote: I just bought some new wheels and tires because I needed to get 15" wheels for the front disc brake kit I have.

After much reading, I ultimately decided to go with 15x5 BRM wheels and some 205/70r15 Yokohama Geolander A/T-S Tires. I'm very happy with the combo. They fill out the wheelwells nicely and they don't rub.

Here's some pics:

They are 26.5 inches tall

With those cookie cutter wheels, you are primed to install the Thing front 5 x 130 disc brake conversion.... Very cool and low cost.... Full disc conversion procedures you might enjoy the RoMTOC thing Data CD. It is the best single source of information on the Thing. Check it out at :

http://romtoc.com/romtoc-thing-data-cd.html

Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:15 pm

Hey guys, I think I worked out all the math but I thought I'd check with the experts first.
Would these rims fit with a stock thing:
15" rims
7" wide
Backspacing = 5.5"
Offset = +38 mm
And if not why?

Thanks!

Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:31 pm

jkthinger wrote: Hey guys, I think I worked out all the math but I thought I'd check with the experts first.
Would these rims fit with a stock thing:
15" rims
7" wide
Backspacing = 5.5"
Offset = +38 mm
And if not why?!
I'm a little rusty, but let's give it a try.

Stock wheels are 5 inches wide and yours are 7. So that moves the edge of the rim 1" both inboard and outboard. Increasing the offset from 32.5mm to 38mm moves the inside edge of the rim inboard another 5.5mm or roughly another quarter of an inch. So, the outside edge of your rim will ride about 3/4" outboard of the stock rim, and the inside of your rim will run about an inch and a quarter inboard of stock.

Someone please double check my thinking. Sometimes I zig when I should have zagged.

JK, what tires are you thinking of running?

Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:19 am

I was thinking of running 205/75 15's. Not quite sure on what brand/style yet. I wanted to make sure the rims would fit before I went any further.

Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:27 pm

I just went out to the car and crawled underneath. IMHO, the backspace of your intended rims is too large. :cry:

My car has 27x8.5r14 tires on stock rims. My tires are about 1.2 inches wider than stock, and so about 0.6 inches inboard of stock.

My rim rides about 0.75 inches away from the upper torsion arm, and about 1.5 inches from the tie rod end. I deduce that the stock tire would ride about 2.1 inches away from the tie rod end.

I think you would have some clearance on the tire, but I think you're out of luck on the rims.

Wed Apr 18, 2012 6:33 pm

I guess the better question would be:
What offset range would fit on a stock Thing?

It might be useful to add to this sticky what offset ranges would fit different width rims.

Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:59 pm

That type of database would be nice, but I don't see a practical way to implement it on a message board. It would require a table that could be updated over time. That's why on any car related board the format always seems to be the "show off your tire and rim combo" thread. And the information on those threads is suspect, because different folks have different ideas about what "fits". And beyond that, it's just a lot more complicated than it seems.

Take your situation. You've given the specs on your rim. But the specs don't tell the whole story. Aside from the width, each rim has a profile. Have a look at the photo of a stock Thing rim below. See how close the flange is to the upper torsion arm? About 3/4". That's a 14" rim. Maybe with the 15" rims you're talking about, the flange would clear the upper arm completely. Maybe not. You haven't told me exactly what rim you're thinking about. And even if you did, I couldn't tell you if it would fit. Even with a photo I couldn't. MAYBE if I had a technical drawing of the rim, I could tell you. But the most reliable answer would come from someone who has actually fitted the rim you're considering and knows for sure whether it fits or not. And that brings us back to the "show off your tire and rim combo" thread.

Fri Jun 29, 2012 7:01 pm

Hey Guys, I found myself a set of tires and rims that will work, once I do the disc conversion and get the new ones on I'll post a pic.
While doing my research I came across a few helpful websites that I thought I'd pass around to help anyone else looking for the same thing.

http://www.willtheyfit.com/
The way I used this one was I went through this sticky and found the biggest rim/tire combo, and the biggest (most positive) and smallest (most negative) offsets that were reported to fit and put those specs in, then put in the rim/tire combo I wanted and saw if it fit within the outline of the first one. Then I double checked on one (or more) of these other comparison tools.

http://www.gtsparkplugs.com/WheelOffsetCalc.html

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

http://www.1010tires.com/tiresizecalculator.asp?err=98&rsn=cde-no-cde-gen-by-svr

http://www.1010tires.com/WheelOffsetCalculator.asp

http://www.rimsntires.com/specs.jsp

http://www.alloywheels.com/Fitment_Guide
Has a few wheel fitment tools at the bottom of the page.

Hope this info will help someone else looking for a new rim/tire setup.

Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:25 pm

Sombody asked, not sure if this is in the sticky,
(Formula for measuring total tire hight) Try it and go measure your THING's tires, pretty neat formula, I used to get new tires for my Thing. Wanted somthing smaller than what I was running.(had 205 70R15's) my foot would
just catch the door sill, not no more!

Here's the formula for determining the diameter of a tire based on the
standard size designations:

Diameter (in inches) = (2 * tire-width * aspect ratio / 25.4 ) + wheel rim size

The division by 25.4 is to convert mm to inches.

Using 205/60-15 as an example:

Tire width = 205 mm
Aspect Ratio = 60 (sidewall height is 60% of tire width)
or 0.6 * 205 = 123 mm

Wheel rim dia. = 15 inches

So the diameter of a 205/60-15 tire is = (2*205*0.6/25.4) + 15 = 24.69 inches

Mon Nov 05, 2012 1:16 pm

I just read through the thread, maybe I missed it, but it is worthy to note that the rear brake drum can be directly switched out with a late model beetle brake drum (new drilled to wide 5 pattern, CIP1, WW, Custom WH so forth sells them) and gain about 1 1/4 spacing inward for a deep dish rim to fit under the rear stock wheel well.

Sat Dec 01, 2012 5:39 pm

What a great thread!! Reading this,I understand bus (pre 63 type 2) 15 inch wheels fit front and rear with no problems. Is this true?

Sat Dec 01, 2012 6:42 pm

It is true, but remember, those rims do not have a safety bead built into the rim. If you run them at 20 pounds for a decent ride, the tire can pop off the bead in a quick turn to avoid something in the road or in a hard curve.

Wed Mar 20, 2013 9:52 am

joescoolcustoms wrote: It is true, but remember, those rims do not have a safety bead built into the rim. If you run them at 20 pounds for a decent ride, the tire can pop off the bead in a quick turn to avoid something in the road or in a hard curve.

Safety beads exist to retain the tire on the wheel rim in the event of a sudden deflation like a sudden tire failure. They serve no purpose to retain an inflated tire's bead.

Pressure--even very slight pressure--retains a tire's bead to a far greater degree than a safety bead ever could. It takes only a few hundred pounds to break a tire bead. The force exerted by the tire's pressure far exceeds what the safety bead can do.

The sidewall on a garden-variety 25.5-inch-tall tire on a 15-inch rim has about 330 square inches of surface area. A sidewall that size on a tire inflated to 20psi has roughly 6,680 pounds exerted upon it. The portion of the tire that comes into contact with the road influences only about 1/4 of the tire's sidewall. That's almost 1,700 pounds in itself.

That means you'd have to exert nearly the entire weight of the vehicle on that confined space. And to do that you'd have to load the tire absolutely laterally. And for that to happen in a normal driving situation the tread would have to maintain sufficient traction to develop that force. Not even a gummy race tire on a perfect track surface will develop that kind of load and believe me racers would love them to. That's a best-case scenario that's far outside the parameters of a road-bound vehicle.

Sure, you could knock the bead off the wheel if you slid sideways into a curb (done it myself) but at those forces neither greater tire pressure or a safety bead would not help appreciably if at all (they certainly didn't help in my circumstance).

But don't take my word for it. Consider the beetle, a car that has about the same GVW as a Thing. As early as October '52 Volkswagen specified 1.1kg/cm (16psi) front and 1.4 (19psi) to 1.6 (20psi) rear tire pressure. Not even tubes bear any influence: Volkswagen made tubeless tires standard in July '56 yet it didn't alter tire pressure until 1963, and at that it increased only the rear from 23 to 24psi. The front remained about the same. Volkswagen didn't adopt safety beads until what, 1968? Radial construction doesn't bear any influence either. Porsche vehicles got radial tires as options yet didn't offer safety beads on all cars until '72.

So a safety bead may retain a tire bead in the event of tire failure but it won't help retain an inflated tire's bead.

Sat Mar 23, 2013 10:42 am

Math and Science also tells us that the size of a tire (width) has no effect on traction. Tire engineers also state that lowering tire pressure does not gain any traction. Tell that to guys who drive their VW's on the beaches.

VW started installing the safety beads by USDOT requirement, as did the big three.

Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:37 am

Guys I've tried to search for a answer to this but haven't found a definitive answer. I found a set of Hercules HDT tires that I would like to put on my Faux Kubel. It has 15" wheels on it right now w 165 tires. Will a 7.00 fit ok?