Some of you may have seen what I was messing around with it was posted in a different thread but I thought I would put it in a logical order in case any one was interested...

I will start by saying this was more difficult than I anticipated, and Not entirely sure I would do it this way again.

So heres what I did... The new blanks are from coker, the ones I choose are 20x4.5" blanks, they do also offer them in 20x6"

http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/59c5e376.jpg

I removed the center from the old rims
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/1a137bf1.jpg

The centers are too large to just fit in the new blanks, I didnt have access to a lathe big enough so i did it the hard way on a bridgeport...

http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/13d6f39c.jpg

Here you can see how it fit in
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/2394257e.jpg

I was kind of hoping it would sort of self center but that didnt work as I anticipated. So I fabricated this fixture which allowed me to use a dial indicator spin the whole fixture and center the blank to the old center

http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/9210eb69.jpg
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/494e4ebe.jpg

I tacked the rim in a star pattern sequance and the flipped it over and tacked it from the back
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/303aa6c4.jpg

I mounted the rim back on the hub and spun it to check the run out, they arent perfect but really quite good, put them back in the fixture and welded them in nice and hot

here you can see the weld sequence
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/b2666565.jpg

heres one spinning just for fun
http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo291/mack1416/a3335f27.jpg

basically the front and back of the "spokes" are fully welded which works out to be over 5 feet of weld on one rim.

I only have 1 of the two I have been messing with done, but I am hoping to get the other one done today.

Like I said before it was more difficult than I anticipated but it did work. In the process of doing this, I have come up with a way that I thing would be much easier that I would like to try out but I dont have any more rims like these to try it on. The rims on the back of my truck are 3 piece and the centers are too small to fit into these blanks. If someone has some of these rims sitting around and wanted to donate them Ill give the other method a try. I actually think the other method could be done in a home garage fairly easily...

anyway.. back to work...