TheSamba.com :: View topic - Old School

Fri May 02, 2008 6:24 am

I'm putting some widened steelies together for my project and got them back from the powder coater. I have to have inner tubes put in them and never hear of this when widened steel wheels are mentioned. They are 15 x 10 and were on the car when i got it. (balloon tires and tubes on them then) I want to go with street tires.
- What are concerns with tubes ?
- I would like to see pics of your buggies if you have the steelie look
Bart dbarchives

Fri May 02, 2008 7:22 am

Folks use tubes for a variety of reasons....leaky welds on widened wheels would be one of them. If you are running low pressures in the tubes, as you might in an offroad application, you could spin the rim inside the tire and tube and peel the valve stem off the tube, thus flattening your tire. Probably not a big concern if you aren't aggressively off roading or drag racing.

Fri May 02, 2008 7:50 am

I have a set of original appliance 15X10 on the back and I believe and 15X7 or 8's on the front. And if you know anyone looking for a set of these I'd like to sell them.

Fri May 02, 2008 8:10 am

These are 15x8 with late 50's 15" bug wheel centers. Tubeless. Who told you that you had to run tubes on your wheels?

Fri May 02, 2008 8:32 am

Bart,

Tubes should not be required with any tubeless street tire, , unless there are doubts on the rims ability to hold air, , coating or sealing the rim would be an option.

Some farm appliance or other off road use tire might require a tube?

Boston Bob E

Fri May 02, 2008 9:48 am

When I got the wheels back I noticed that the blasting had opened up a spot weld and it was coated that way, so .. Anyway they had tubes in them before and this may have been why. I can't weld the hole and start over and most likely they would leak somewhere else.
Tubes it is. If it were any other buggy I would run mag wheels or something but this buggy is what it is. Also the stem holes are rather large from the previous tubes.

Fri May 02, 2008 12:27 pm

Unless you see a hole after the rims were powder coated, the powder should have sealed up any pin holes. Tuber would be good insurance, but will make the sidewall even stiffer than without the tubes, so that might be about the only "concern" with such a light vehicle.

Jay

Fri May 02, 2008 1:26 pm

Heres a pic of my old manx with its wide 5 steelies on and as i was using it of and on for motor sport IE : sprints etc at the time i ran no centre caps and had teh clips removed for the that clean look

And another better side shot, sorry about the mug behind the wheel but thats me

Fri May 02, 2008 4:03 pm

glassbuggy wrote: When I got the wheels back I noticed that the blasting had opened up a spot weld and it was coated that way, so ..

I got a set of centerlines 5 years ago from a buddy because they were leaking between the two pieces and he didn't want to run tubes in them.
I cleaned the wheels used a wire brush on my 4 1/2" angle grinder to remove the old sealant from the center crack and then used a big tube of 100% silicone calk inside where the two sides met. With the sealer in there I have been running these with tubeless BFG's for 5 years. Never had a leak..knock on wood...

With the larger valve hole,
They may have been set up for old style tires that required a tube back in the day.

John

Fri May 02, 2008 6:19 pm

i had mine made by stockton. 15X10. no tubes here.

Sat May 03, 2008 4:32 am

The picture of the wheel in my previous post is a 15x8 Stockton wheel. Amazing how fat even a 8" rim is....

The guys at Stockton don't so much widen rims as they take your wheel center and weld it to a rim size of your choosing. Before I went with these rims, I found some that had actually been widened. I bought those too, and will use them as spares, but I would say having seen both methods, that I much prefer a stock hub welded to a new wheel.

Sat May 03, 2008 5:53 am

Oil_Eater wrote: Unless you see a hole after the rims were powder coated, the powder should have sealed up any pin holes. Tuber would be good insurance, but will make the sidewall even stiffer than without the tubes, so that might be about the only "concern" with such a light vehicle.

Jay

Tuber? I fail to see how a potato would be helpful in this situation. :lol: