I am looking into casting some wide 5 adapter covers and want to know if anyone is interested in them. They will be about 3/16" thick and go over the wide 5 studs and held on with the wheel. This will let you use a modern rear and brakes or disk front with an adapter like Dick Spadaro's and still keep the wide 5 hub look. Please give me feedback on this so that I can see if it is worth the time and cost involved in making them Thanks in advance, Jim (55willys)
Neat idea,gonna make them with the dust cover for the front or like the rear one in the pic? Price will be the deciding factor.
That would be too cool....I racked my brain for a year trying to figure out how to make hub caps that looked like this.... ....for this.... Awesome idea!!!
I did the very thing you are talking about. I used a pair of Dick's adapters, and some original hubs like in your pic. I started by machining the inner bearing snout off, then turned a step on the aluminum adapters, to index the steel hat. I cut off a pair of junk axles for the outer stubs. They are a little heavy, but work great.
That is the basic idea except that I am going to cast them in aluminum and machine the front ones to accept a stock dust cap and the rear will have a bolt and a nut to replicate the axle stub look. Jim (55willys)
Hey Shaggy nice to hear from you. This is for the guys who have a small bolt pattern and want to convert to wide 5. I am also working on floater options. Thanks for the input. Jim (55willys)
Original wide 5 hubs? Are you looking for the ones that are 2 peice or the 1 peice hub and drum? Jim (55willys)
Oh I like em alot. I'm just stalled out on all my projects right now. I think the adapters would be cool. Did I miss the talk about possible pricing? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Got to go down to the foundry to get a price on casting. If I have a pattern maker do the pattern I am looking at @ $1000. Then I also need to have the rough casting machined so the more I make the less the cost per unit. Jim (55willys)
How about these? I love the wide 5 look. I used hubs from a late model stock car. Had to make my own spindles for the front axle. Rear is QC from a LMS.
What brand are those? I have thought about going that way but I am trying to keep the original Ford wide 5 hub look. What did you do to make the spindles? Jim (55willys)
To me this falls under the fake drum covers on disc brakes, fake Olds (and other) valve covers on small block chevies, and fake quickchange covers on rear ends. Maybe that's why not so much response.
I think im running the one piece. I dont need any and i have a few spares. But no rear spares at the moment. It would just be nice so we didnt have to run adapters and such. I could see running your product but i cant see it being very cheep.
That is the easiest design to do for right now, latter I have plans for an aluminum wide 5 with new Buick drums or a disk option and not fake drum covers like the So-Cal ones that I hate.
There are limits to the early Ford axles and some people don't want that to be the weak link in the drive train but still want to run a wide 5 hub. and 38-41 3/4 ton axles are getting a bit hard to find as they were used up for racing. I see you decided to use a reasonable engine in front of yours.
One route that can be taken is to cut the spindles off of a 3/4 ton rearend (check interechange but a dana60 might even work)and bolt them thru the exhisting backing plate holes, a locating step should be turned on the inside to locate them to the ford spindles. It should be noted that i'm talking about 37-48 ford spindles
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