The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 5500 gmc doing farm work

Just a few pictures of the gmc earning its keep .

Doing what it was meant to do.

It’s a fun truck to use . I just got new steer tires put on yesterday . Hopefully in the next year or so I can get the engine overhauled it’s getting kind of tired but still useable for the time being .

Are those RH5 widow maker wheels? If so, I'm surprised you found a place that would even touch them. Either way, cool truck and it's good to see it working as a useful truck.

Yes those are the rims of death . Any of the three tire shops locally said they would be able to do them but the two charge by the hour so I took it to the place I do most all my business with they don’t love them but they will do them and a pretty decent price too. The 8.25 tire was hard to find locally so I got them off eBay about 590$ for the pair with free shipping and they came with flaps

svcattle - I'm not 100% sure, but I think your wheels are not the "RH5" 2 piece split in the middle rims as identified in the picture below in the lower left corner of the diagram. Your wheel looks more like the "RH" 2 piece wheel with the one piece continuous locking ring on the outward side of the wheel.

I would suggest re-looking at them to really confirm what you have. I think the "RH" wheels are much safer and still usable, although listed as obsolete in the chart.

PS - The chart was screenshot from this Stovebolt Legacy Tech Tip New Wheels for Advance Design Big Bolts.

Only the RH-5 widow makers split in the middle. All the others have some sort of flange and lockring around the outside (looking at the tire as mounted on a front wheel). The pictured wheel has no lockring of any kind on the outside.

Tronman - After reading your response I went back into his previous posts to see what other pictures of his truck might reveal about the wheels. Zoomed in screen shots from some of his other pics appear to indicate the front wheel does have a split outer locking ring that is the outer tire bead seating surface. I think these are actually 2-piece wheels that look like the Goodyear Type "LW-LWB" as the wheel does appear from the other pictures to have a "split" outer locking ring.

The zoomed in pic of his rear wheels does not show the telltale 2" wide ridge where the two halves of an RH-5 rim would mate up from what I can tell.

svcattle can let us know for sure or not if the wheels actually have the split outer bead lock ring, but I think he most likely doesn't have RH-5's.

OK I see the split outer ring on the one. Good news for the truck's owner, he doesn't have to buy all new wheels, as I just did on mine that had the widow makers. The downside of 22.5" drop center wheels is it's just about impossible to mount one up yourself. I bought the special tool and tried my best.. nope.

I've broken down and put back the ole' widow makers on my own, on several occasions. Last time, I used a bulldozer blade as the safety cage as I was on my Grandma's farm.

Ok I’m back here are more pictures of what I have I’m positive they are the two-piece rim split in the center if they were the lock ring type, I would have done them myself

I am running 8.25 20 steer tires and 10 00 20 drive tires bias ply

Check these last pictures and see what you think

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Svcattle - To really 100% be able to respond to your question, it would help to get the same kind of detailed pictures from the front side of the wheels (inner side for the rear outer duals) to see the other tire bead area.

Just looking at these last pics only, I would tend to agree with your assessment. But to help put the question to bed, please post some other side pics so we can get the full story.

Those are widowmakers. I've got them under my bus right now, too. Well, til I get some tires on the new drop center 22.5" rims, anyway :-) Somewhere on that center band it will say Firestone RH-5 and then the rim size.

RH5

I will try to get some more pictures of the rims . The tire men say they are the real deal split rim I had to have a drive tire repaired last year and then I finally got the new steer tires on about two weeks ago . Picked up a load hay yesterday. Just over 26000 gvw on this one

Can anyone else post pictures now ??

You should be able to post pictures. I did a little earlier in another thread.

I’m going to try making a new post and see what happens

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5500 GMC doing the heavy hauling farm work!!

Yessir

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You are getting the hang of it on posting pictures!!!

Where did you find the RH5 sheet?

I was searching around and it came up on ford page . If I can find it I’ll post a link

Thanks for the link to the document.

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