Car wheel suggestion (for a quad)

[composimmonite]

I'm thinking of putting my little Yamaha Breeze quad on the road. The current balloon tyres are unsuitable and proper E marked items are horrendous price so car wheels with ordinary, skinny (say 155 profile) road tyres are what I'm looking at today. Ideally I'd like 12" Classic Mini steel wheels but their PCD means PCD adapters would be required that make the project £150+ dearer. Another thought is wheels with large centre so massive PCD such as the old VW -

That way PCD adapters could be flat plate that I can get laser cut like these -


So question therefore is can people suggest any steel wheels that might be worth considering ? Obviously there is the VW and probably rare / old cars but I'm thinking more along the lines of items that would be easy to source and reasonable price.

Cheers.

Paul H

[colnerov]

Hi, after a little research the PCD is 4x85 so not common away from Yamaha ATV. If you can get plates laser cut and machined for adaptors. Why not cut out the middle step and get some suitable sized weller wheels and get the PCD redrilled?

Colin

[Mystery Machine]

Most Japanese 4x4 vehicle have a PCD of 139.7 (in both 5 & 6 stud, depending on manufacturer) and the CB is usually around 108mm.

Food for thought.

[colnerov]

Hi, to maintain the tyre diameters of front/rear of 20" and 22" you will need 145/13 tyres to at least match the rear for gearing purposes. It may look a bit odd compared to the original 7" and 10" wide.

Colin

[austinpowers]

Trabant rims are 4x160 and 13x4 so there would be space for PCD adapters.

[hario]

Could you get suitably sized road tyres to fit the original quad rims?

[guinnal]

Remember that if you use "open" centred wheels eg original beetle, you are relying on the wheel nuts to centre the wheels and not a spigot- near impossible to get them truly centred.
You could end up with a quad behaving like a clown car! Good luck with it mate, hope you get a solution.

[Rich]

Mar 23, 2015 0:14:26 GMT guinnal said:

Remember that if you use "open" centred wheels eg original beetle, you are relying on the wheel nuts to centre the wheels and not a spigot- near impossible to get them truly centred.
You could end up with a quad behaving like a clown car! Good luck with it mate, hope you get a solution.

Do beetles with wide five wheels rely on a spigot then?
Funnily enough, they do not. So assuming the manufacturer of the adaptors is actually any good at their job, how are they going to be 'impossible to centre' when they use self-cantering taper seat wheel nuts?

[guinnal]

You might be right mate, but in my own experience of having had a few 5 stud beetles I don't think they rely solely on the bolts for centering.






As you can see the drums have a raised boss which ensures the wheel is centered just like a conventional modern spigot does

The flat plate adaptors pictured earlier are just that and rely only the bolts to centre the wheel unlike the Beetle drum.

I didnt say impossible to centre....I just said "near impossible" , if you rely solely on the taper bolts there's a risk they wont be centered.

I'm not saying don't do it, I'd probably chance it but be prepared for some wobble, after all if the op is planning on running this on the road wobble and vibration is something he'll want to avoid.

[Rich]

Ok, so beetles use a big spigot.
I'll name some other things that don't use a spigot then, ok?
VW transporter t3, MG B, Landrover..
As long as the machining is done properly it's not an issue.

[Deleted]

Ford 100e Wheels. , Little 13" steels , 4.5 or 4J iirc, and quite a wide pcd of 4 x 5.5" Just like trailers and some caravans etc.  Think brian james trailers are the same , my first 100e had a set of those on the rear when we were converting it..

[guinnal]

I didnt say it wont work, but about 25 yrs ago I had an old Vauxhall fitted with non vauxhall rims. Correct pcd but larger centre bore. I vibrated like hell.

I took this pic of my old land rover wheel today




It's a spigot wheel

[guinnal]

mgb front hub and if you look at the back of the rostyle wheel, you can see where it locates onto the snout of the hub

[guinnal]

a type3 rim showing a similar, though smaller bore, spigot type effect as the old beetle.

sorry for being pedantic

I'm sure plenty of vehicles historically relied on taper cone nuts for centering the wheels but I don't think it's been used on a new car for several decades or more because spigot wheels must be safer/better or whatever.

[Rich]

I can assure you my mgb and my t3 type 2 didn't and do not rely on spigot centring. The wheels don't 'vibrate'. As a technician I was also always taught not to balance landrover wheels on the centre hole by tire manufacturers as it is not drilled central to the wheel so say. Can't comment on how true that is but most wheel balancing machines used to come with a landrover wheel balancing jig..

[guinnal]

Sorry mate, I didnt know you're a tyre fitter. I bow to your expertise.

[Rich]

Mar 25, 2015 8:53:44 GMT guinnal said:

Sorry mate, I didnt know you're a tyre fitter. I bow to your expertise.

Don't insult me. I'm not a tyre fitter. Not fitted tyres for about 7 years.
Anyway, enough silly quibble. Let's let the OP get some more wheel choices and ideas under his hat.

[guinnal]

Ouch!......not an insult to you. You said you were trained on tyre fitting by tyre manufacturers, I took it that you are a tyre fitter or technician. When you knew so much about the wheels of old motors, I guessed you probably weren't doing the tyres for McLaren at Silverstone.

Respect to any tyre fitters on RR. We'd be running on rims without them. Hope they don't take offence that you thought being called a tyre fitter was an insult.

If I was thinking of an insult, " tyrefitter" isnt one that springs to mind.

Good luck to the op in finding suitable wheels

[Deleted]

Those wide 5 rims arnt aligned using that huge casting on the drum, Its not even a tight fit.  They ARE aligned by the wheel nuts,  The later 4x130 bugs are even less well located, They have zero spigot alignment,  i know from years of lugging bug and t3 wheels up onto my legs and having to lift them to get one wheel bolt in, then rotate the wheel to get the opp one in just to get it to hang there.

Lots of older cars located using nothing but the wheel nuts / bolts, the whole spigot ring argument has realy got out of hand over the last few years.

I think in reality , The only application id see that you "need " them, are with shanked wheel bolt designed wheels, Like U.S unilug stuff, revolutions, slots etc.. as the bolts and seats arnt conical so it cant align itself.  That said, Plenty of yanks have run unilug stuff for years without running spigot rings, With damn heavy cars, running some huge power.

[Rich]

Mar 25, 2015 15:25:13 GMT guinnal said:

Ouch!......not an insult to you. You said you were trained on tyre fitting by tyre manufacturers, I took it that you are a tyre fitter or technician. When you knew so much about the wheels of old motors, I guessed you probably weren't doing the tyres for McLaren at Silverstone.

Respect to any tyre fitters on RR. We'd be running on rims without them. Hope they don't take offence that you thought being called a tyre fitter was an insult.

If I was thinking of an insult, " tyrefitter" isnt one that springs to mind.

Good luck to the op in finding suitable wheels

Sorry, I did mean my response jokingly to get us back On topic a bit, sorry if it came over wrong at all.