The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Modern 16" 6 Lug wheels

Hi everyone,

I am hunting for some new 16" 6 lug wheels that can house the disc brakes, but I want to keep the same look of the old wheels. In other words, are there any wheels that look exactly like the stock wheels of a 1954 Chevrolet 3100 but is made for disc brakes?

Thanks

Dexstar wheels would be a good compromise. They have 15x6 and 16x6 wheels.

http://www.dexstarwheel.com/products.pdf

http://www.etrailer.com/Tires-and-Wheels/Dexstar/AM20514.html

You can try the Wheel Smith. Might be a little pricey though.
http://www.thewheelsmith.net/

There's Wheel Vintiques too. Again, may be a little pricey.
http://www.wheelvintiques.com/about-us

Yep, Wheel Vintiques or Wheelsmith are your best bet. I have Wheel Vintiques Artilleries and love them, but they're much larger than what you will be after.

But will they cause any interruption to the tie rods, inner wheel well, etc,?

Thanks Gents, also, if I decide to keep my wheels, will the stock 16" wheels clear the calipers for a disc brake kit upgrade?

Theres several threads on adapting disc's to these old straight axle Stovebolts and those useing stock 16" wheels seems to encounter the same clearance issues.
Course alot depends on the kit and or assembled disc parts you use.
I haven't gone there yet but I try to keep an eye on disc conversion threads as I will eventually go that route also.

Some kits claim that all you need is to buy their optional spacer which kicks the OEM wheel out just enough to clear the caliper.
Other restorers here just simply grind off "just" enough edge material on the calipers to gain the clearance. In looking at some of the pics this isn't a bad mod to do as it's so little theres no compromise in the caliper's integraty.

One or more should chime in with better answers. Unless your 3100 is a daily driver you should be able to work through any clearance issues w/time and patience.
Good luck
Dave

The plan is to make it into a daily driver, hence why I want to put on the Disc brakes. I was going to have the middle of the wheel popped out into another wider rim, but why the extra pay when I could just grind down 3/8" or whatever the spacing is required.

Hopefully someone can chime in. I want to make sure I can just bolt on the disc brakes and they'll fit fine with my stock wheels so I dont have to spend any extra money or compromise its original look.

Thanks

Do not grind on your calipers!!!!! Very unsafe. I've seen calipers split apart from doing that "mod" to clear wheels. Best bet would be to get wheels that properly clear the calipers.

The intent was not to grind down the calipers, but the inside of the rim (wheel bell). Another poster on here has already done it (Cletis) on their '54 GMC 100. Or if not add some wheel spacers.

i feel like grinding out your wheel would throw the balance off so much that you would need a large amount of weights to offset it, otherwise you risk the smoothnees of the drive and uneven wear. unless you're that good at grinding symmetrically all the way around the wheel.

No need to grind symmetrically all around the wheel. With the CPP kit I just needed to grind a tad off the edges.

It was better to be seen by cletis himself, by the way, great post on covering the cpp kit. I look forward to fixing up the truck with disc brakes.