Technical Wheel adapters, the devils work or a legitimate hot rod fix.

Mrs. Ashley Stone, that you might know as my better half, has come to me with pictures of the wheels she intends(actually has already ordered) to have on her truck. Said wheels only come in a 5" bolt circle. She has a car pattern on her truck. When she looked at me with those sad eyes and explained that these "Hot Rod Hanks" are the wheels/ size she wants to run, i sent a text to my buddy in Baton Rouge, that is well versed in this sort of stuff, and he said no big deal, order some adapters off of Amazon. What says the powers that be, any of you psychos running wheel adapters? Am i out of my damn mind? Don't answer that

 

Sad eyes work on you?

 

I'm ok with the those machined from billet, but I'd stay away from the cast ones.

 

Her sad eyes do

 

I didn't even see any cast, they were all machined billet. I didn't order them because she ordered tires and wheels, i figured I'll get them mounted and see what the best thickness would be as far as back space

 

I had 5 lug to 6 lug wheel adapters on my T because I had a brand new set of 6 lug 15" wheels still in boxes in my shop for over 10 years. They never came loose or gave me any issues, but I never ran it that hard with an almost 100 year old frame. I painted them black to make them less noticeable...

 

You could have your hubs and an axles drilled to change the bolt pattern.

 

Yeah but i believe I'm also gonna benefit from the spacing. I'm just asking if the adapters are legit or a death trap.

 

They work. They are used in a lot of applications.

 

What he said !

 

Crappy no-name feebay = death trap. Good stuff you know the source of = OK.

Some good ones: https://www.wheeladapter.com/

 

If you have to run adapters go with these guys. They will make adapters to fit your application to order.
Not cheap but you know what value you put on your wife, Amazon cheapie or the best you can find.
US Wheel Adapters | Change your Bolt Pattern | The Perfect Fit
Personally if there is a way around it to not use adapters that is how I would go.
I did some searching this morning for a guy on the truck board who stuck a Camaro clip on his TF Chevy 3100 and blindly fell in love with a set of 5 on 5 wheels. I found that the 75 Camaro stubs and 79 Caprice sedans use the same upper and lower ball joints making the 79 spindle with 5 on 5 a simple swap and you get bigger brakes to boot. Jury is still out on the tie rod end difference but that shouldn't be a deal killer. Rear drums and axles you just redrill.

 

She's been planning on a new set of cragar's for her truck all along, but she seen a truck online with flat black smoothies and chrome center caps and fell in love. Little bit off topic, but it's her truck, and I'll give her whatever she wants. Soooooooo, she ordered the tires and asked me exactly which wheels to order, that's when i seen they didn't offer that wheel in 4.75 lol. But it's all good, we'll figure it out. If Pete Eastwood says it's ok, then bygod it's good enough for me

 

Funny thing is, those are less than what i was looking at lol. Thanks for the link Dennis, i appreciate ya buddy

 

I ordered billet aluminum ones from WHEEL ADAPTER back in the 90's for my roadster. Adapted early ford 5x5 1/2" wheels to chevy 5x4 3/4" hubs. Ran them a long time with no issues.

 

What model truck? Those unmentionable square bodies have a 5 on 5" pattern. These spindles work on her truck?

 

Lmao! Brother if i even start to explain it, the moderators will pull in my driveway in a blacked out suburban, in black suits, with sunglasses, and those little microphones in their ear once the body is covering all of that stuff I'll post pictures of it but no it's not a square body.

 

I guess material and thickness is what matters.
I’m out on cast.
I’ve seen cars with 6 inch adaptors. Seems like a serious bearing load problem.
We had 1 1/2 inch billet spacers on a car with a 502 and a stick. Never had a problem

 

I'm seeing 1", 1.25", and 2". The wheels are 9" wide with 5" backspace, I'm guessing that the 1.25" will work great because the aluminum wheels on it right now have 4" of backspace.

 

Hey Lloyd, I've been running 1-1/4 billet adapters on my daily driver OT '02 Venture Van for 4 years with no problems. The neighbor kid wanted to sell the"20s" off his BMW cheap...couldn't pass them up.

 

I’m running a set of spacers on the back of my 37. Works fine. Only restriction is no impact tools on the lugs.

 

The kid that moved into my shop years ago (and adopted me), runs some sort of 6" thick adapter on his blown BB trophy truck sand toy. 4.5/5 to 6 lug bolt pattern. Needed them to fit the custom 15x15 rims he's got hanging off the back. Think his rims have about a 3" back space. At times, his rig catches about 20ft of serious air, and nothin' s broke yet (going on 8-9 years). Think he paid about 5 or 6 bills for the pair, but they seem to be worth it. I'll ask him who made 'em.

 

Have also ran them on the back of a 4 wheel lifted pickup to match front wheel offset without any issues.

 

A couple of things to look for, make sure they are thick enough to have the lugs flush or nearly flush with the adapter so the back side of the wheel fits against the adapter and not touching the lugs. Another thing is make sure the adapter lugs have standard threads and not metric, will be easier to find lugs nuts to fit your wheels. I made the mistake of not reading the description when I bought mine and ended up with metric studs, and had to buy another set of nuts for my wheels. I carry a stock steel spare, so I have a set of both sizes wired to it. I run them on the front to go from a 5x5.5 big Ford to a 5x4.5 small Ford. So far, they have never loosened up and drive fine. They did push the tires out a bit, but I have no clearance problem. I'm thinking I may get one of the drill guides and drill the hubs when I get different wheels that are more open so the adapters won't show through the spokes.

 

I can't believe we're talking about BILLET on the HAMB! What's happened to our traditions? Yeah, I know it's better.

 

I ran adapters on my 63 merc, 2” thick billet
Short lug nuts then my wheels snd lug nut of choice.

worked fine.

 

You can check fitment before ordering by putting the truck on jack stands and wheels removed. (Jack stands supporting suspension)
Use a square or plum bob to mark the wheel mounting surface, inside and outside wheelhouse.
That’ll give ya a good start figuring it out

 

LLOYD, I've run them on my 36 Ford in the rear and on my 36 Chevy in the front both for fender spacing issues. They were 6061 T6 aluminum billet and never had issues with either pair. The 4 3/4"bc ones went to a member here and the 4 1/2" bc ones I still have, I believe they were 1 or 1 1/2" thick. Good luck in you're search, just don't buy cheapies, they will make you unhappy. Mitch

 

If the spacing doesn't cause a problem (sounds like it'll actually help in your case) I wouldn't worry too much about it. I ran some good quality 1 1/4" spacers on one of my cars and never had issues. Mine had the same bolt pattern on both sides, I just needed 1 1/4" less backspacing, which these provided.

The issues you'd have to worry about are crap quality spacers, too much spacing putting too much load on the wheel bearings, or moving the outer sidewall of the tires out too far that they start to rub. None of those things seem to be an issue here so I think you'll be fine. Just make sure to properly torque the lug nuts on the adapters, because you can't tighten down the adapters once the wheels are on. You'll be fine.

 

So far no one is getting on your case about scrub radius?