Do you think wide steel wheels look good? I shure do, but i cant afford them. That's why I widen my own! Here is how i widened two wheels 3" and two 4": The wheel used in this tech is a 13" x 5" Volvo 360 (Crap car, i know. The wheels are shit ugly too!) original wheels. Machines and tools used: - Big lathe to fit a wheel of your size - Files and sand paper to clean up wheels - Roller to make the sheet metal - TIG weld and rods - Grinder Prep the wheel by washing it and sand off rust. Measure the center hole in the wheel and make a jig like this: The round bar i used is about ½"-1" bigger than the center hole in the wheel. You could probably use a drive shaft with the right bolt pattern, but i didn't have one around in the machine shop, so i made a center jig. Take/make a BIG washer. (probably best to make it from the axle you made the jig from before you put it in the lathe). The thread/bolt i use is M12 (pretty much the same as ½" UNC). Mount the wheel on the center jig and cut the wheel just inside the outer bead. Doing this in the lathe will give you a perfect straight cut you cant get with angle cutters and such. You will have this: It's time to make the new piece of metal! Measure the diameter where it goes and you can compute the length of the sheet metal piece. The width is depending how much wider you want the rim, in the example 3". I used 14 gauge steel, but you'll have to measure the thickness of your own wheel, so it will hold up under the weight! Shaping the piece of sheet metal: Tack the now round sheet to the big part of the wheel. Tack about 3-4" apart. When you got all the way around mov on to the outer ring/bead! Time to finish welding. I use a ESAB AristoTIG wich gives you a maximum of 160-something amps, but i set it at 70 amperes! I also use 316 stainless rods. Use a TIG, because it's easier to get the even weld than with other methods, and you have full control of the welding. Weld about 4 inches at at time on opposing sides of the rim, to avoid warping, wich coud ruin the wheel! when you have the inner weld done move on to the outer weld, same procedure here. Four inches on opposing sides. When that is done, weld up the seam where the ends of the added material meets. You should have something like this: Now clean the back side of the welds with a stripper disc or equivalent. Go over the outer side of the welds with the tig to be sure it's air tight and nice. Use a flap disc to grind the back of the welds so there is no sharp edges to damage tires and/or tubes! This is what you will have when its done: The first one takes a little time, but by four you will do just fine! Test your skills on (s)crap wheels before you go all in on your nice ones! And finally, GOOD LUCK with yours!
This is a neat tech! I like how the FWD Volvo wheel ends up with all that offset. Might be useful for adjusting the backspacing of some combinations.
Nice work. Just so happens I'll be widening a pair of wheels for the first time this weekend, cross your fingers. I'm adding 2" to a pair of '39 Ford 16x4 Wide-5s.
On these particular wheels i also machined the center holes out from 52 to 58 millimeters, so that it'll fit a VW Golf I. No servo or nothing. The guy told me it was hell to turn the wheels when you're not driving! I guess the bearings will wear out extremely fast, since the car is a weak little thing, no big ol' american dimensions! Good luck to you, but I think you will do just fine. Think twice before doing stuff, and it will work out! When i widened these, i had no instructions at all, i just did what seemed to be right, and it turned out super in balance and finish after sandblasting and paint. 2" sounds great, i personally think 13"x8" was too wide for the front, but the guys i did these for wanted it done like that so i did and they loved it!!
Started widening 2 more wheels today. Pretty much the same, but this guy wanted to have his widened closer to the center to make it easier to mount the tires. It also makes the wheel look heavier and wider. In these 15" x 6" Volvo wheels there is 3 mm of thickness in the metal, so i had to crank the TIG up to 90-95 amps. Got one done today and here is how it looks!
Thanks for posting this...the pics are great! I need to widen some old dodge artillery wheels and have no clue where to start. Now I feel less lost.
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