Vintage Stock car look - Steel wheels - pics

Ok folks... Im thinking about putting some steel wheels on my Sixty-five Impala. I really like the vintage stock car look.
Does anyone have Pics of some Sixtys cars with this look.
Post em here. Why not include tire and rim size too.



Here is my inspiration.

 

Here is my '64 Galaxie with steelies, and an article on how I built them:



I needed a pair of plain steelie wheels for my '64 Galaxie that is built Nascar style. They had to be 15" x 10" with a 5 x 5" bolt pattern to fit the Frankland quickchange rear end. The aftermarket wheels I found had a dual bolt pattern that I did not like, plus they were abut $160.00 each. I decided to build my own.

I found 15" x 10" steel wheel "shells" from Speedway Motors for $39.00 each. I had some plain steel wheels with the correct 5 x 5" bolt pattern, so all I had to do was remove the centers from the wheels on hand and weld them in to the new "shells".

Here is the new wheel shell, and the wheel I would get the center from. The I.D. of the new shell was 12 5/8", and the O.D. of the center was 13 1/4". Some machine work would be required:


The wheel center was spot welded in with eight spot welds. The welds are located and center punched. The welds are then drilled with small drill bit at first, progressively getting bigger until a 3/4" drill bit is used:





The center is then persuaded out with a large hammer:



The center is then bolted to an axle that is chucked up in a lathe and the outer edge is turned down to 12 5/8":


The machined center is tapped into the wheel shell, and the backspace is set, which in this case is 3 1/4":


I use an old spindle with a hub on it bolted to a workbench to true the wheel before welding. A dial indicator is used to get as little run out as possible. This wheel had .020", which is really good:


The center is tack welded in four places, and then welded solid alternating welds from side to side to eliminate any warping:


Here is the finished wheel waiting for sandblasting and paint. Total cost about $100.00 for two wheels:


Here is the car they are going on:


Here is one of the 15" x 8" front wheels built using the same method:

 

While building your own wheels is really cool, I prefer Aero race wheels. Usually, they're pretty inexpensive, sometimes you can even find special deals on overstocks. They actually have NASCAR approved wheels (D-hole ones not solid). We have Aero wheels on all three of our vintage dirt cars. They are high quality, steel, and pretty light too. However, the beads are really radical so dismounting them does require a tire machine.

I'm planning on running some 15"x8" black 50 series wheels on my black '64 Galaxie with NASCAR style exhaust dumps.

 

The Aero, Bart or Basset wheels just do not have the look of the steelies for a 60's Nascar look.

 

great stuff so far. Thanks for posting the wheel build article.

 

I think I stole these from this board...

 

One more time...

 

I've been looking for some cheap 15 x 10 wheels to put slicks on, but I didnt know if those Bart wheels would be a wise choice on a 4000 lb. street car or not.

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing?

 

The Bart wheels look good, but i like the real vintage look. Here is a cool pic i had on my computer:

 

I just wish someone made big raised white letter tires in a bigger 16", 17" or 18" tire. I can only find them in 15".