[Brad_bb]

Well I've decided that I'm not going to be reinstalling the original 14X6JK wheels on my 64 GTO. I'm going to store them.

Now I need to choose what wheels and tires to use. I need at least 15 inch wheels in order to use disc brakes, which I plan to install. It seems a popular size for these GTO is 275/60 15's on a 15X7 or 15X8 wheel.

I need to get this determined because I just ordered my transmission and they want to know my rear tire diamter to determine the speedo gear to install.

Any useful advice appreciated for wheel or tire choice. I like the look of the Radr wheels in this photo:


This wheel is kind of cool too. Maybe a Foose? These are larger diameter wheels it seems, but have no idea what diamter. Anyone. I am open to larger wheel diamter and lower profile tire. I have no experience with this though. Any help?

[gto_ron]

I'm running 235R70 - 15s on 15 X 7 stock appearing steel rims. I don't like the low-profile tires on 50 year old GTOs. Just my opinion.

[AdamIsAdam]

I've got 15's, 275/50 out back and 225/60 up front. I plan to buy Cragar S/S instead of these Weld wheels that came with the car. They're nice, but I like the classic Cragars.

Anyway, these fit well, no rubbing and they look good. I need to measure them to determine what size SS to order. I'll post that info here in case that helps you out.

Also, I'm planning on selling the front rims if you're interested. I was going to keep the rears with the drag radials on them, and buy new BFG's for the rear.

Here's the pics:

[IMG][/IMG]

[hhs66]

Brad, good luck with this. I'm learning the hard way about offset and backspacing. I'm all about filling up the wheelwell and not so much the low profile route. I went with old school American Racing Torq Thrusts. Have 215x70 Diamondback red lines on 7's on the rear and they look pretty good. Tried it on the front and they hit badly. Went to a 205x60's on 5's and they work but look like hell. Has a great stance but they look like an old 45 rpm record in the wheelwell. Got lotso room in the rear for something taller but the stance goes away. It's all mounted and balanced so I'll live with it temporarily but I gotta do something with the front. Post how it turns out with sizes when you get it figured out. I could use some more schooling. Thanks, Skip

[Vet65te]

From the pics I got from a previous owner who had the car back in the early 80's, it originally came with the dog-dish caps but when I bought my '64 GTO in '94, the owner at the time had picked up the spinner wheelcovers and I liked the look. Unfortunately, the original 14x6 steel wheels wouldn't clear the late 60's A-body single piston disc brakes I added so in order to use the disc brakes and also run the original style spinner wheel covers I ordered up a set of '69 Camaro 14x7 steel Rally Wheels front and back. I added 245-60x14 TA Radials. Worked fine out back but since I had slightly lowered the car, I had to shift to 14x6 Camaro Rallys up front with smaller tires so I didn't scrape going into driveways.

Mike T.

[b-man]

Originally Posted by Brad_bb

Well I've decided that I'm not going to be reinstalling the original 14X6JK wheels on my 64 GTO. I'm going to store them.

Now I need to choose what wheels and tires to use. I need at least 15 inch wheels in order to use disc brakes, which I plan to install. It seems a popular size for these GTO is 275/60 15's on a 15X7 or 15X8 wheel.

I need to get this determined because I just ordered my transmission and they want to know my rear tire diamter to determine the speedo gear to install.

Any useful advice appreciated for wheel or tire choice. I like the look of the Radr wheels in this photo:


This wheel is kind of cool too. Maybe a Foose? These are larger diameter wheels it seems, but have no idea what diamter. Anyone. I am open to larger wheel diamter and lower profile tire. I have no experience with this though. Any help?

The black car is riding on 17" polished Torque Thrusts, very popular these days.

It can be hard fitting wider wheels onto these early A-body cars if you don't have any experience.

17X8 wheels all around is an easy fit, but you can't run a very tall tire in the front.

Check out the wheel and tire combo sticky thread in the suspension forum, I have a couple of my '64s on the first page.

I was running 17X8 steel wheels (zero offset, or 4-1/2" backspace) and 235/45-17 tires all around on my '64 Tempest, these tires although a bit on the short side are almost exactly the same height as the factory spec 6.50-14 tires.

Have since sold the 17s and gone to 18X9s with 245/40s and 275/40s in order to clear some 14" and 13.4" C6 Corvette Z06 brakes.

Recently bought a set of original Hurst wheels, they only come in 14X6 as you may know. I'll run a set of 215/75-14 whitewalls on them, they're going on a '64 LeMans convertible.

Big or small rim sizes can look good on most any car, it's all about what you like and what fits the style of your particular car. I really don't care what others like, I build what I like.

Get out the tape measure and a straight edge (yardstick) and figure out how big you can go. It helps to have a few bare wheels to put in there to use as a reference when measuring, especially up front where you need to turn the wheels from lock to lock. You can set the bare rim (securely bolted to the hub) on a wood block and let the car's weight down on it to help check clearances.

Doing your homework will allow you to figure out what fits before you plunk down the cash.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by Brad_bb

Now I need to choose what wheels and tires to use. I need at least 15 inch wheels in order to use disc brakes, which I plan to install. It seems a popular size for these GTO is 275/60 15's on a 15X7 or 15X8 wheel.

Currently run 15's on my '64. Factory 15x7" rims with 4.25" BS. Added front disc brakes last year.

235/60/15's on the front fit fine until the addition of the disc brakes. Disc brakes widen the front track by about .25" per side. I now have an annoying rub. So with disc brakes and a 7" rim - my suggestion would be to have 4.5" BS if you want to run 235/60/15's.

On the rear - 255/60/15's which is the limit for a 7" wide rim. Most manufacturer spec at least an 8" rim for 275/60/15's.

If you want to run 275/60/15's - an 8" wide rim with 5 - 5.5" BS. I have a 1" wider overall 12 bolt rear - so I would go with 5.5" BS on my car.

[klunker]

I would strongly suggest do some research on available tires for 14" or 15" rims.
you are very limited.
I would therefore look at 16 or 17" rims and see what is available for tires.
much better selection.
I need new tires for my 65 and I have 15" rally II on it.
poor choice of tires. I'd like a soft compound that lasts for maybe 20-25 k miles at the most and has a modern tread on it. a "sport" tire for dry road traction which is what most everybodys classic cars see. Why would you want a hard tire with old tread compound? (bfg ta radial)

[Brad_bb]

Originally Posted by b-man

The black car is riding on 17" polished Torque Thrusts, very popular these days.

They didn't look like the Torq thrust I was used to seeing but it looks like it's a Torq Thrust II

http://www.americanracing.com/wheels/VN105/VN8158

[b-man]

Originally Posted by Brad_bb

They didn't look like the Torq thrust I was used to seeing but it looks like it's a Torq Thrust II.

Yes, those are the TT II wheels.

As long as you don't mind polishing them all the time they're great. Personally I stay away from wheels that require a lot of work to keep up.

[b-man]

Here's a few pics and details on my 1964 Tempest.

Rolling stock consists of 17X8" custom-made black-painted steel wheels with 4.5" backspace (same as 'zero offset' on this wheel width) running factory Pontiac dog-dish caps. Tires are 235/45-17 all around. A 1/4" wide red stripe was painted on the rim lip to simulate the look of a factory 14" redline tire, fools a lot of people until they look a little closer.

These wheels are quite heavy at 37# each bare, the only drawback. It was worth it though to have a one-of-a-kind wheel, I'm not really looking for the ultimate in handling but the car is no slouch. I had the wheels made to put them out near the outer reaches of the wheel wells, in hindsight an extra 1/4" of backspace might have enabled me to fit slightly bigger tires a bit more easily.

Up front are '78 B-body (Bonneville wagon) spindles & 12" rotors re-drilled for A-body 5 on 4.75" bolt circle (B-body is 5 on 5"), along with Hotchkis tubular upper A-arms and HO Racing front springs. The factory lower A-arms have been reinforced with plates welded in the lower bushing area.

HO Racing 1-3/8" front & rear sway bars were installed, along with owner boxed rear lower control arms and new stock regular-ride rear springs cut down by 3/4 of a coil. Urethane bushings and KYB gas shocks are installed all around.

[b-man]

My '64 GTO has a set of custom-made steel wheels, powder coated gloss black. The wheels centers were removed from a set of 1956 Chevy 15X5" wheels and welded into new steel rims.

The combo consists of 15X8" rear wheels (3-1/4" backspace) with 275/60-15 Firestone Indy 500 tires, and 15X5" front wheels (3-1/8" backspace) with 205/75-15 Kuhmo touring tires.

The rear end is a Ford 9" that has been narrowed 1-13/16" per side, it measures 56-3/8" wide from drum to drum. The stock rear was 60" wide. The rear wheel wells were not cut or rolled to fit the tires, but the inner wheelhouse was hammered a bit at the very rear inside bottom corner for clearance.

The rear springs are new regular-ride coils that have been cut down by 3/4s of a coil to lower the car, Air-Lift airbags (pumped up to 10 psi) are installed in both springs. Front springs are new 1967 Firebird V8 springs, they lower the front without any mods.

[AdamIsAdam]

sweet, B-man!

[Vet65te]

Whatever size rim you chose, there's plenty of available tires to suit the application from a car that see's daylight just every so often for a car show to the Joe Racer types that have to have soft traction and aren't concerned about treadwear or traction in wet weather.
To the OP, what disc setup are you contemplating?
Mike T.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by klunker

I would strongly suggest do some research on available tires for 14" or 15" rims.
you are very limited.
I would therefore look at 16 or 17" rims and see what is available for tires.
much better selection.
I need new tires for my 65 and I have 15" rally II on it.
poor choice of tires. I'd like a soft compound that lasts for maybe 20-25 k miles at the most and has a modern tread on it. a "sport" tire for dry road traction which is what most everybodys classic cars see. Why would you want a hard tire with old tread compound? (bfg ta radial)

I agree that 17's will get you a much wider tire selection.

16's are another matter. Very limited tire selection for cars. I put 16's on our '72 Camaro back in 2001 when 16's were coming stock on many performance vehicles. I'm looking for the right 17" rims to replace them now because of lack of available tire sizes.

FWIW - Diamondback has an H rated 15" tire. They have a 360AA rating Better than the S rated BFG's with a 400AB rating.

[Brad_bb]

b-man, I would think the TT II's would be clear powdercoated after polishing, thereby making them easy to clean, no? It's easier to clean a smooth surface than a cast one.

Nice custom wheels. Be careful with the 56 chevy centers. My understanding is that the 50's wheels were a softer steel than the later 60's and on wheels, and hitting the lugs with an impact can mushroom/deform the lug nut holes. I had this exact problem on my 55 chevy with stock wheels on my first trip after restoration. I couldn't tell when bodyworking the original wheels that one of them was mushroomed. It seemed fine, but when I got on the road, the lug nuts backed off -obviously the lug nuts had bottomed on the drum and were not sandwiching the rim. All it took was a small gap, very small and the lugs started backing off and the quickly started beating itself up. Luckily i was only going 45 and got it stopped before it went catastrophic. I had to restore another rim. I'm sure you don't use an impact to run your lugs on, but something to be aware of in case someone in the past did.

Vet65te, I don't know which disc set up yet. I was restoring my car all stock. It's all clean and show quality, but I never filled the brake system with fluid and bled it. Now I must choose what parts I'll go with to get a lot of good whoa! The larger the rim diameter, the less problems I'd have I'm sure.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

You can run disc brakes with some late 60 early 70 14x6 steel wheels.
69-70 GTO's with dog dish or hubcaps for example - were not restricted from disc brakes.

If you're doing a stock type resto - that seems the best way to go.
And remount the 64 spinner mag wheelcovers.

[b-man]

Find the wheel style and sizes you want.

Decide whether you want to stagger the rim widths (7" front, 8" rear for example) or run the same rim widths front and rear along with tire sizes so you can rotate them.

Next find out what the backspacing is on the wheels you've chosen. Most important.

After all that you can try to determine what size tires to buy.

Wheels with shallow backspacing will severely limit your tire choices, with the rims sitting further out it's harder to put wider or taller tires on your car.

If you want an 8" rear wheel, you'll need a 5" backspace to center the wheel in the wheelwell, therefore allowing the tallest and widest tire choices. This assumes you have the stock width '64 rear end, if you have a mid-'66 or later rear you'll need to add another 1/2" of backspace.

Certain wheels will only come in limited widths and backspacing combos. Sometimes you'll be disappointed to find a wheel style you really like just can't be had with the right backspacing, very frustrating.

[AdamIsAdam]

Originally Posted by AdamIsAdam

I've got 15's, 275/50 out back and 225/60 up front. I plan to buy Cragar S/S instead of these Weld wheels that came with the car. They're nice, but I like the classic Cragars.

Anyway, these fit well, no rubbing and they look good. I need to measure them to determine what size SS to order. I'll post that info here in case that helps you out.

Also, I'm planning on selling the front rims if you're interested. I was going to keep the rears with the drag radials on them, and buy new BFG's for the rear.

Here's the pics:

[IMG][/IMG]

In case it helps anyone else here, I just measured my current rims. They are 7" fronts and 8" rears. The backspacing, while a bit harder to tell with the tires mounted, does seem to be right around 4.25". My rears have plenty of clearance with the current 275/50x15 Nitto Drag Radials. I'm hoping they fit the same way with 275/60x15's. I know they'll be a bit taller, but hopefully they'll be the same width once mounted. I have a 1" lowered spring on all 4 corners with what looks to be a slight spacer in the rear to give it a slight rake. As you can see, the current tires fill the wheel wells, especially in the rear. But still no rubbing back there.

Now I'm off to order my rims.

Reminder, my front rims are for sale. . They are universal fit (multiple holes), light weight Weld Racing wheels.