MTFCA Forum

Whenever I can find them, I like to have some good rims in my swap meet stocks. I have good ones sand blasted and electro zinc plated so that they are ready to go. I have two excellent heavy gauge rims available at the moment, but they are not T model rims. They gave a collar around the valve stem hole, which I presume fits into a ferrule in the felloe of a demountable wheel to stop it moving when assembled. It is heavier than comparable collars I have seen on Ford rims. There are no register marks to indicate the use of removable lugs used fit them to a wheel, so they may be new old stock. if one was looking for rims to build wooden felloe wheels, all that would be needed is to grind the valve stem collars off. Has anyone any idea what vehicle on which they may have been used?

On US cars at least, demountable rims were galvanized and non-demountables were painted body color along with the rest of the wheel.

In the case of of your odd rim, I believe Chevrolet would be one possibility. Ford rims I have measured (both types) are 27/8" wide. A Chebby demountable rim is 31/8", and I assume the same goes for non-demountables.

Allan : Sounds like you have Firestone rims. They made one with no lugs like a 88, but they used a tit around the valve stem to lock the rim.
No sure if it was a Ford item, but I did take 4 out of a Ford Dealer that closed in 29 in Tn. May have been some they ordered for some reason.
Will try and post pictures later. Dan

Thanks Dan and Steve,
They are standard T width. I was aware of the wider Chev rims, but thought they all had fixed lugs. On closer inspection, these were held on the felloe with 5 wedging type lugs. I believe accessory Firestone demountable heels were 5 lugged. Photos on the forum of Firestone rims show a collar around the valve stem hole to be a pressing, much like the cap under the radiator mounting nut on a T. These items on these rims are machined. The fit into a hole in the rim rather than being fixed to the rim on the outside. A larger diameter step on the outside acts as a shoulder to hold them in position, and then the rest of the outside section is the same diameter as that which goes through the rim. At this point the assembly is just 3/8" high.

I bought them because they would make excellent replacements for Ford non demountable wheels, once the stem hole lug was ground off. I have no use for them. Had they been demountable type Fodr rims they would be staying in my stash!

Allan from down under.