I just picked up a set of 3.5" vintage cragar super trick front runners. These are the 3 piece design that bolts together. They leak air (a lot) around the center lug holes. What do i seal them with and do i just apply the sealant or do i need to take them apart to seal them?
My old 14x16s leaked and i dug out the clear sealer (looked like clear silicon bath sealer) and used Sikaflex (the stuff for bonding on panels or bonding in modern windscreens would do ) i didn't take them apart ,just got out the old sealer,cleaned with a wire brush and put a bead around the join ,smoothed it in with my finger and it was done, i didn't seperate the wheels just in case it put them out of balance , Good luck Wayne
listen to Muttley and get inner tubes. These wheels do not have enough rib to lock the tire to the bead and are not meant to be mounted tubeless. I have seen one break down when it hit the edge of a loading ramp on a truck. No reason they wouldn't the same thing if turned at speed. Tom S.
The premise of your first statement is incorrect. They are not what most people here on the hamb would consider vintage. Personel opinion here but I think they are ugly and boring. Never liked them even when I was a teenager and they were the "rage". Good luck.
If I remember correctly there were two versions of the Super Tricks - a Race only version and a Street Super Trick. The Street ones had the silicone around the seam where the tow halves came together to keep them from leaking and able to run tubeless tires. The race versions, although I have seen some with silicone, were intended to run with a tube only and did not have tubeless approved DOT rim steps to keep the tire seated. I am pretty sure that they never made a 3.5" in the street series, so do as the Mutt says and run a tube!
I liked them when I more than doubled my money selling a pair last year. Just like centerlines, if you're running them tubeless, you need to replace the RTV seal where the halves join at the outside, or else run a tube
The tubes should be matched to your tyre size. I had a pair of skinny Super Tricks back in the '80s and they split around the bead seat flange. As hotroddon said, they were not designed for street use, and I would say were marginal on a race car, especially something like a wheel-standing super stock. By now they will 30 or 40 years old, so I imagine there will have been additional age and/or work hardening and fatigue doing their bit: they look great, but I'm not sure I'd run them personally.
Nuther vote for tubes. And I've seen a couple of these (3.5 X 15) that were run on the street bent and warped from regular use (not potholes or wrecks). They're pretty fragile. Larry T
I beleave the street version was also a chromed steel rim while the race version was allum. the street version came in a 14x5 and 15x5 as their narrowest rim.
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