dually wheel question

[BigBlocksRule]

Originally Posted by GCncsuHD

Steel dually wheels can easily be widened though, there is a member on this site that had widened wheels on a dually, 8" I think.

Do tell...I've done several searches and can't find it. I have access to a turntable welder which should help...

[GCncsuHD]

Originally Posted by mopar346

Well, I found the source of my vibration this evening. When I got to the point of removing the rear tires Ipot to the last nut on one side and I heard a clunk as it the wheel dropped - uhoh. Did the other side same thing. I got my digital caliber out and sure nuff the originals measured 4.55XXX and the 16s I had picked up measured 4.875XXX. .

Sounds like you were given Ford wheels.

Originally Posted by BigBlocksRule

Do tell...I've done several searches and can't find it. I have access to a turntable welder which should help...

A steel dually wheel is just like any other steel wheel with a center welded into a hoop. Cut out the center from the wheel, cut the wheel in half at the proper place, chuck it in a lathe to true up the edges, get a proper width piece of a hoop to add in or roll a piece of flat bar, weld it, true it, weld the other half of the wheel back in then weld in the center where you need it for proper backspacing. Remember backspacing is very important to keep the duals from touching, to keep them from sticking out to far, from rubbing leaf springs, and to get the stance you are looking for. It sounds like a lot of work, but any machine shop should be able to do it.

Here are a couple pics of widened dually wheels, both by the same member on this site, you can see the obviously different offset of the wheels. It appears he actually bought completely new 16" hoops and threw the old ones away and welded the original centers into the new hoops judging by the step in the wheel at the bead. I don't know how wide his are, but they appear to be 8" if I had to guess.




You can compare that to my dually with the normal narrow 6" wheels, although note that I do have 2.5" spacers between the duals to give room between the larger tires and 1.5" spacers up front for a wider more aggressive stance to somewhat match the rear.