1968 Chrome Styled Steel Wheels

I am searching for a set "Chrome Styled Steel Wheels" for my car. The Marti Report shows the car did come with them from the factory. It is the only option I need to complete the car.

I found a set in great condition with trim rings, no caps. Visually great but when it came to the installation last week, 3 of the 4 could not be balanced properly. Big waste time and money.

What did you do or would you suggest?

Duker

From what I've been told the wheels should not be balanced using center-mount balancers because the center holes are not necessarily in the exact centers of the wheels.
They should be balanced using the lug holes so try to find someone with a lug-mounted system. It may take some searching.

Thank you for the quick response. This could make the diference. The garage had the center hold system now to find a place with the lug hold. Boy that is going to be fun.

I went to a place up here Carcone's that restores all types of rims sandblasting steel and repairs to mags. Russ has been doing repairs for many years. He told me that there could be a minor change due to rust around the holes but basically for the condition of my rims they are bent and straightening them he said, "steel has a memory and heating them up could damage the chrome". We are looking at replacent.

Does anyone have a set?

Duker

Something didn't sound right to me, so I did a little checking. I have a set of chrome SS wheels and I checked the measurements between the inner edge of each (5) lug hole to the outer edge of the center hole. The max difference found was .005". That's a pretty close tolerence.
The wheel centerline of the lug holes & center hole is virtually identical. I have balanced 100's upon 100's of wheels using the center hole and a tapered adapter, and balanced the wheel/tire within 1/4oz.
I would suspect that in your case you have damaged/bent wheels or really bad tires to start with.
As an alternative to center or lug mounted balancing, you might find a shop that does 'on car' balancing. We had one of those also. With the car jacked it would spin the wheel assembly to high speed, and a device attached to the wheel would read out the imbalance for adding weights. I liked it because you were spinning ALL moving parts: tire, wheel, rotor/drum simultaneously.

Neil

Here is a warning from Virginia Mustang / Scott Drake. Wheel Vintiques has the same warning.
http://www.virginiaclassicmustang.com/howto/instructions/Styledsteelwheel.pdf

My local Discount Tire told me that all 5 of my new wheels were so poorly made they couldn't be balanced. They also said the wheels were out-of-round. I mounted them on the car and spun them and found that they are perfectly round.
I then contacted Wheel Vintiques and they said the wheels must be balanced using the lugs. They wouldn't say why but I figured it out.

I don't know for sure if the original wheels have the same issue to the same degree but it takes only a few minutes to mount them on the car and spin them to see if they are warped or bent, or if the problem is just the center hole.

Thanks for taking the time to find this information and sharing it, very interesting.

Wow. That's very interesting. I think I'll just stick with the originals. They don't seem to have the problem of having non-centered center holes. But if one is purchasing after market types (made in China?) then the center lug balancing method would be the way to go. Live & learn.

Neil

I think I'm a victim of terminology. I was confused by what was called a "lug centric balancer" but after reading the link, I believe that what they're talking about is using what I've always referred to as a "spin balancer" instead of the old style "bubble balancer", where you just set the tire on it and added weights until the bubble was centered. If that's correct, just about everyone on the planet is using the correct balancer. Us rednecks out here in the sticks need pictures sometimes.

Steve

Steve,
Most new spin balancers attach the wheels to the balancer with a large cone that fits in the wheel's hub hole, and those are the balancers that give false readings on steel wheels.

The older style spin balancers, that replaced the bubble balancers, don't have the center cones. Instead, the wheels are bolted to the balancer using the lug holes.

As far as I know the center-cone balancers are used only because it's easier and quicker to mount and unmount the wheels to it, and since new wheels are lighter and more accurately made the center mount works fine for those wheels.

When I went to the garage to check the results of the balancing the tech guy showed me the rims with no tires just the steel rims on the machine and I saw the unbalance of the rims. Would this make a diference?

My tires are brand new BFG's raised letter.

Doug (Duker)

You want to use the lug-centric balancing, as on the stock style rims the lugs locate the rim. Most shops should have adapters to lug balance.

Using the hub with a tapered spindle can lead to minor offsets, as the center hole does not locate the rim when mounting...

And yes, if the rims are significantly out of balance it will affect the overall balance. Have seen a few posts elsewhere on how poorly some of the repro rims are made and how out of whack they can be.