Modifying stock wheels - changing back spacing

[JeepsAreBuilt]

I got a set of old Jeep wheels I am thinking of modifying to work with my CJ's current brake setup. I have upgraded to 4 wheel disc brakes on it and stock wheels will not fit.

The plan is to flip the center section 180 and push it back 1/4" to get the backspacing I want. I am not 100% it'll fit, but It just might. I'll have to do some fitting.

Today I took a wheel and cut the center section off the rim. This is the first time I've done this, and I think the next ones will go better as I'll use a different method cutting it out. The center sections appeared to be spot welded or plug welded. I saw oval grind marks that looked liked welds were cleaned up. So I decided to drill them out on my drill press. I got up to a 3/4" bit before I started chiseling at the center section, and it separated. I did pleel some weld bond before it separated. So next time I'm gonna grind the rim with a 3" grinding wheel on my diegrinder. Once welds are ground away, I'll diegrind the hole so I can weld it up good.

I plan to get a spare axle setup on a bench and bolt the wheel on - align the rim and weld it.

 

[nonhog]

Fun stuff! Your ahead of me. I have a few wheel projects "on hold"
Here is a thread with some good links and info.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=442024
Good luck and keep us informed.

 

[justanengineer]

While in college I saw this done in a machining class I took and definitely would not trust my skill to do it properly. Basically the wheel was put on a BIG lathe, the rim cut from the center section, both edges trued up in the lathe, contact face between axle/wheel cleaned up and squared, edge of center built back up with fresh weld and rettrued square. The rim was then heated in a kiln, removed and placed over a cylindrical plug 3/4 the size that has previously been ground square/flat, and the center section then sits flat on this and gets welded back together for both an interference press fit as well as welded. Can you do it without this much effort? Yes. Should you? You answer that one. If its for play in the woods I say go for it. If its for the road, never. Even if you dont kill someone should it break, losing a wheel off of a vehicle or trailer today is a minimum $1000 fine.

 

[Lotek]

While in college I saw this done in a machining class I took and definitely would not trust my skill to do it properly. Basically the wheel was put on a BIG lathe, the rim cut from the center section, both edges trued up in the lathe, contact face between axle/wheel cleaned up and squared, edge of center built back up with fresh weld and rettrued square. The rim was then heated in a kiln, removed and placed over a cylindrical plug 3/4 the size that has previously been ground square/flat, and the center section then sits flat on this and gets welded back together for both an interference press fit as well as welded. Can you do it without this much effort? Yes. Should you? You answer that one. If its for play in the woods I say go for it. If its for the road, never. Even if you dont kill someone should it break, losing a wheel off of a vehicle or trailer today is a minimum $1000 fine.

It doesn't happen often, but I am agreeing with an engineer.

There are companies that will build custom steel wheels for you, but cutting one apart and welding it back together in your garage...

 

[LIVELY]

we did this for along time . we cut the centers out and rewelled them in reversed /drilled a new valve stem hole so you could air up the tire] then weld the old hole shut.
we did most of them on a spinning axle setup but sometimes had access to a lathe which helped be more true.

i trusted my wheels on street cars and running down the dragstrip --it is called GOOD welds and good craftsmanship.

we also rebuild our front end parts and narrow our rearends--none have fallen off yet .

i guess it comes down to trusting your abilities/welds/ and designing

 

[justanengineer]

Lively - I agree 100% that its possible to do with some very good welds, but also believe that OEMs use shrink fit interference fits between the centers and rims for a very good reason - to reduce the stress on the weld. That was the reason the wheels I saw done had the centers built back up and use of the lathe was necessitated. Anytime you build something like these you have to assume that it will eventually find itself in other hands and may end up with many miles on them. Not saying yours will ever break, just saying I would seriously worry about the welds cracking if subjected to a hundred thousand on the road with the usual vibration...for me thats about 5 yrs driving each vehicle 6 months/year.

 

[freeskier]

have any of you widened a wheel?

 

[NASTYZEN]

Iv'e seen people do all kinds of stuff to metal wheels and non metal.The hardest part is to get it true so it will balance again.
I run a business and I just don't touch wheels, period.I'Ve seen to many wheel failures in my time.I don't need the extra liability.
I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I don't mess with wheels,they sell for so few dollars it's not worth the effort.

 

[larry_g]

Iv'e seen people do all kinds of stuff to metal wheels and non metal.The hardest part is to get it true so it will balance again.
I run a business and I just don't touch wheels, period.I'Ve seen to many wheel failures in my time.I don't need the extra liability.
I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I don't mess with wheels,they sell for so few dollars it's not worth the effort.

I'm curious, how many of these wheel failures have been stock unmodified wheels?

In our litigous society I can understand your not doing wheels but there are so many wheels out there that are simply spiders welded in a wheel hoop to say that welding them together is a poor choice.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[NASTYZEN]

Under racing conditions,any wheel gets beat to hell and eventually has to be replaced.Hairline cracks near the bolt holes or in alloy rims cracks from machining marks or stress raisers or bumping are a common thing.
If great care is taken it is relatively easy to weld the center web to the rim on metal rims.I've seen it done successfully.I'm just saying that there are places that do this for a living for cheap.Why take a chance?

 

[JeepsAreBuilt]

Thanks for the input.. And yes this project sounds like a dangerous stunt.. and the endurance of the remade wheel is a concern. My cj5 isnt a daily driver, and will not see very many miles on the road.

But, I'm just doing this for fun - I may only do one wheel, or a set if it turns out good. I have not done anymore with this project yet.. I'm pretty busy during the week.

For aligning the wheel, I'll have it mounted on a axle end or hub that'll allow me to spin it. I'll use a dial indicator on the rim to measure run out to get it true. No big chuck lathe access for me.

 

[jaysberman]

Check with the roundy round crowd.
I had a pair done by fellow near me and they turned out great.
He does it all the time for the modified racers.

 

[jjjrmx5]

http://www.bandedsteels.com/

It's a company out of the UK that does them all day long.

Many people try to make banded (a.k.a. widened) steel wheels and some are really badly done. We have seen some of the wheels that have been made out there and are really bad.

An example of a recent set we have been asked to look at are below. It looks like the weld has not penetrated properly and the band of steel has not been cut properly.

Some one has at some point tried to make them fit there car by cutting away material from the centre point of the wheel where it bolt to the hub.

BEWARE OF HOMEMADE BANDED STEEL WHEELS!

Steel Wheels

To understand banding you must first understand the construction of a steel wheel.

They are usually constructed from 2 main parts, the rim and the centre. The rim is manufactured from sheet steel that is ‘spun’ into the shape of the wheel.

The centre is also made from sheet steel but is usually pressed into shape. Material thickness varies between types and sizes of wheel but most of the car wheels I have come across are made from steel between 2mm and 4mm thick. The thickness of the rim and centre may be different depending on the age of the rims
The rim is usually joined to the centre by large spot welds but occasionally by a manually welded joint (MIG etc.). Sometimes rivets are present but these are only there to align the rim and centre before it is welded and are not really there to form any kind of permanent load bearing joint.

So What is a Banded Wheel

I would define it as any wheel that has been cut around its rim and has had a band of metal welded in to make the rim wider.

So long as you can weld the new rim on straight and with good penetration and accuracy etc . . . there is no reason the wheel would be any weaker then the original.!

So How’s it Done?

Well first you need to work out how wide and what offset they need to be. Usually you can just add a metal band into the outer section of the rim which will increase both the width and the offset. If your really picky and want to change the offset and width by a different amount then you either have to weld in 2 bands, one on each side of the centre but this is not recommended

Cutting

Once you have decided where you want to put your band in and how big it needs to be you need to cut the rim in some way. Our engineering company use a parting off tool in the lathe to neatly cut the rim in half. It’s a good way to do it as you end up with a nice even and concentric cut (this is done by bolting the wheel in a custome jig on the lathe) However it was hard as parting off big diameters but a custom jig has been made which nows means wheels up to 19" can be banded Its very easy to break a tool, which is why it is a time consuming job and tools aren’t cheap at £45+.

Making the Band

Well to start with you should use steel the same thickness that your wheel is made from. Depending on the size of the wheel and band size is dependant on whether the steel has to be lasercut to the width you want. The steel needs to be cut to a very tight parallelism tolerance (that basically means they need to measure the same at each end and in the middle.) If they aren’t parallel your wheels will come out wobbly and un even.

Alignment

This is not a trial and error job. Customised jigs have been made to ensure the wheels run true and do not have excessive runout.If the wheels do not run true then you will get a lot of vibration when the wheels are fitted.

Welding

So the wheels are tacked up it needs to be welded, I’m not going to go into the details because you can find that elsewhere but I will say there’s a couple of points you need to take extreme care with. First off, if you’re not going to use tubes in your tyres which you shouldnt be doing if the wheels were not designed to then you need to be really careful that your welds are not porous or your tyres will keep going flat!. If you use tubes, make sure you dress of the weld smooth on the tyre side of the rim to avoid the weld cutting into the tube! Its not as straightforward job in welding the wheels up, the wheels do not just have one weld on each side of the band. Care has been taken and the welding process has progressed and improved over time creating the banded wheels. Don’t dress of the weld! Its tempting to dress it off until you get a smooth join but if the outer rim is slightly offset from the band then you will end up weakening the weld considerably! It’s better to just to leave a neat welded joint than try and hide it and end up with your weld breaking!

Safety

A lot of people are scared of banded wheels because they fear them to be ‘unsafe’ Whatever that means, driving a car at all is unsafe The principles involved in banded wheels are no different to that involved in manufacturing and repairing other critical structural parts of your car. For some reason it is deemed perfectly acceptable for any novice to pick up a welder and attempt to weld up there rear sub frame mounts so that the car scrapes though it’s next MOT. The same goes for people who make their own custom engine mounts or any thing like that really. Yet when I comes to wheels everyone gets scared and even a fully qualified engineer is branded as an idiot for attempting it!

The fact of the matter is if you do the job right and attention to accuracy and detail they will be perfectly safe. If you do it wrong then they won’t.

 

[csmitty]

Its done to H1 wheels all the times. However its pretty idiot proof as you can buy new pressed centers at different BS and it will drop in and center on its own. Then its just up to the experience of the welder. I'm sure its labeled as off road only for that reason, and the beadlocks, but I know I wouldn't have a problem with my welds. Been holding up my Jeeps suspension just fine with lots of abuse.

 

[drive em]

I've done dozens of wheels from changing backspacing, narrowing them and widening them as well. I have used wheel "shells" from different cars that were narrower or wider, as well as using new wheel shells. They have been down the dragstrip at 130 MPH, as well as on street cars with thousands of miles. Whomever says that it can't be done is paranoid. I also build my own drive shafts, weld steering components, and other things that "can't" be done.

Check out this thread where I build a 15 x 10 steel wheel:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46026

 

[polydan]

I've done dozens of wheels from changing backspacing, narrowing them and widening them as well. I have used wheel "shells" from different cars that were narrower or wider, as well as using new wheel shells. They have been down the dragstrip at 130 MPH, as well as on street cars with thousands of miles. Whomever says that it can't be done is paranoid. I also build my own drive shafts, weld steering components, and other things that "can't" be done.

Check out this thread where I build a 15 x 10 steel wheel:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46026

Hey, I realize this is an old thread but I need to express many thanks to this guy. I'm in a similar situation and was looking to buy new"shells" but my search has found nothing....until I plugged in "widen steel wheels" in the search tab here on GJ and found this. So thanks to GJ and the poster here "drive em" I appreciate it greatly!!!

 

[JonBoehman]

Thats how Stockton wheels got their start. I have done a few sets for some local stock car guys and they are still using them.