My son and I bought a 1949 Ford F-3 a while back. Two of the tires are flat and won't hold air for very long. I took a bare rim and a tire mounted on a rim to a local tire shop to get 2 used tires mounted so we can roll the truck around while restoring it. The tires that are currently on the truck are 700x17. The tire shop cannot get a 17" tire to fit on the 17" rim and they cannot get the old tire off the rim. What are we missing? Are the old original rim split rims? If so, how do you get them apart?

HELP!!! Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Danny

 

F-3's came with 2-piece rims according to the service manual. You may have the split rims called "widow makers" These can be identified by what looks like a steel band going around the center of the rim. On the fronts the "ring" is on the inside, if you have dual rear wheels, (probably not) the ring is on the outside of the outer rim, on the inside (towards the frame) on the inner wheel.
You may have a very difficult time even finding someone to touch them. Thay have been known to kill people!
If they are flat, I have been told by tire people DO NOT INFLATE AGAIN. the outer rim section could blow off!
Even driving down the road under normal conditions one could blow.
Your best bet is remove those 50yr old rims and start the hunt for soild rims.
I have an F-5 with splits, took me 6 months to find solid 5-bolt rims. I now have 9.50R22's (radials) on it.
Good luck, this is one of the major chalenges facing your restoration. The rest is a piece of cake.
Reamer

 

The rims you have on the truck are two piece rims that are commonly referred to as "Widow Makers". They got this name because they are a bad design that has a tendency to come apart when inflated or deflated. Search the the board, there has been a lot of discussions about these. Here is one, there are more;

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...highlight=rims


My suggestion, if you are going stock, is to find a set of 16" rims from a F-2 a the vintage and mount larger tires on them. You will be able to maintain the same height as the 17" wheels and use stock hub caps without the hassle of the "Widow Makers". Most tire places won't even touch them because of liability reasons. Again, search the board and you learn a lot. You can also use rims from a more modern Ford truck but after the mid to late '50s they design changed and no longer would accept the stock hub caps.

 

Hey Danny,


I have a 48 F3, and I've been trying to solve this puzzle as well. I just got a replica of the original Owner's Manual, and it mentions three types of rims:

One-piece drop centers which is like modern rims
Two-piece that come apart in the middle
Three-piece, which are the ones with the ring around the outside

In the illustrations, the two and three piece rims are the style with big holes around the rim, like truck or motorhome rims.
I have the rims like you have, with 7.50x17 tires with tubes. I've been told they are two-piece, but I can't find a way to get them apart. The tires are readily available from any of the vintage tire folks, like Coker or Williams.
Everyone recommends going to 16" rims, but they look like crap on an F3 or bigger because we have bigger fenders. I don't want to give up the tall look, not to mention the loss of road speed if you use a smaller diameter tire. Mine measure 33", and the 16''s I measured were only 31".
Last but not least....my truck is totally original, and I don't want to change anything I don't have to.

 

On the two piece rims, there are 2 methods of repair.

Method 1
Step 1 is to wrap a chain around the tire going through the rim holes in at least 3 places. (to keep from blowing up in your face)
Deflate.
locate two Bumps that are about an inch apart by the steel ring going around the center. Thats the location to put the proper rim tool to start to pry the two pieces apart.
If there is ANY corrosion on the inner lips TRASH the rims for your safety and anyone who comes in close contact to your truck.

Method 2 (highly reccommended)
Find replacement solid rims,trash the splits, and your Insurance comany will love you!
Reamer
I trashed the splits, have solid 20" 5-bolt and running radials. Original is great, but in todays lawsuit society safety rules!!!!!!!!

 

One option you have is to purchase brand new wheels, I have an F-3 with the split rims as well and I am going to be putting new "replica wheels" from Stockton wheel, and there are a few other companies that are making wheels for just about any vehicle out there. The reason why I am doing this is from the safety perspective, this allows you to maitain an "original" appearance, but also advance 5 decades in tire technology. you can then run a modern tire, or a replica tire made with todays technology and safety features and the apearance benefit of keeping the stock or period correct hubcaps. Another option one of the previous posts mentioned is to find a set of wheels from a late model F250, I've been told the 16" wheels will bolt up with no clearance issues to the larger brake drums on the F-3 and you can get a tire that will maintain identical tire dimensions for speedo and gearing, without losing the "tall appearance" you like, however there would be an issue on the use of original hubcaps. this is a cheap way of putting safe tires on the truck until you can afford to get the wheels you desire to complete you truck as well. In my opinion you want to find a balance between original and new parts. Is it worth the risk of hurting yourself or someone else to keep the original wheels that have such a bad history that the majority of places won't even touch them? The other thing that crossed my mind was did the shop you took yours to even know that they were handling a potentially hazardous setup? Many of the young guys today working in tire shops have probably never seen these wheels in person, and probably haven't been trained how to properly handle them. I'm not lecturing anyone, I myself didn't know what I had on my truck until thankfully the guys on this board clued me in.

 

Stockton does not make the big truck rims, tried them.

 

Thanks for the input, guys.
I was just looking for info on the 'net, and found a tire industry website that showed a two piece wheel that "blew up" and killed a guy.....but right under that was a one piece modern truck rim that did the same thing....killing the technician.

I am not making light of it, but considering the total number of wheels in the world that come apart, I would bet that the actual number of injuries/deaths is pretty small.
It is the kind of story that eventually becomes legend....everyone has an uncle who knew a guy was killed. OSHA and other entities have specific rules about the way such wheels are handled. If mine is really two piece, then I will take it to a truck tire shop to have it put together

I talked to Stockton Wheel. They want to dismantle my wheel and weld the center into a 16" wheel. I can buy a new 16" wheel with the same 8-bolt pattern for half, so I can't see the benefit in that plan.
Beyond that, I don't see why the two halves of my wheel.....assuming it actually is a two piece wheel....can't be welded together. The wheel clearly has a "drop center" to facilitate removing the tire over the edge of the rim. I even had a flat rear tire recently, and drove the truck about a quarter of a mile to a gas station, filled it with air, and haven't had any further problem. I would have expected a two piece rim to come apart under such circumstances.

I will be taking one apart this weekend to see what I actually have. In looking through the picture galleries, at F3's specifically, the majority look like they have the same rims. Only a few have the bigger truck style, five-bolt rims.

 

Sorry I thought we were talking about the 8 lug 17" rims on an F-3, which they used to show a listing for on their website, I don't have much knowledge on anything bigger.... that having been said as far as a tire outfit knowing how to handle these rims, don't count on it, I work for a fairly large trucking company with a large shop that works on anything larger than a 1/2 ton pickup, and I'd be willing to bet if I brought my truck to them they'd be just as ignorant as I was when i bought it (I'd never seen them in my life, I read a post about them here and went out and looked at them, the PO had painted everything white at some point and it just looked like a one piece wheel), they just don't see these things anymore,almost everything is hub piloted one piece wheels for cost and ease. There's actually a mechanic shortage here and the typical new hire is a guy between 20 to 30 years of age who used to work at Jiffy Lube or Wal-Mart (no offense to anyone, but did you ever wonder why they have a checklist for torquing oil pan bolts, and oil filters those guys typically didn't go to a trade school), and decides to give being a mechanic a shot. I used to own 2 tractor trailers and I'd go to a big heavy duty tire outfit here in eastern Pa and see 3 or 4 guys mounting 8 recaps on rims at the same time and not even putting them in the cages to fill them to 110 PSI... I'm sure OSHA would love to walk in and see them, but its either laziness or ignorance.

 

Hey SMier,

I was confused by Stockton, too. On their website they show an OEM style, one piece rim and list it as 17", but told me they didn't have anything like that.

You're probably right about the tire shops.

 

The F-2 and 3s are identical trucks except for the the wheel size and the rear shocks which were optional for the F-3s. The late '51 and '52 F-3 have larger rear brake drums. I have compared the 16" wheels I have on my '49 F-2 to a stock '48 F-3 with 17" wheels. I have larger tires on my truck than stock, 7.50s, stock are 6.50s. The overall height of my wheels are within 1/2" of the 17"s. I think the 16" from a F-2 are a good and cheap compromise that will allow you to still us stock hubcaps and maintain a stock appearance with one piece rims.

BTW, F-1s are the only models with the small wheel openings, front and back. F-2 through F-6s have the same front fenders and the F-2 and F-3s have the same rear fenders and boxes.

I have found Stockton wheel to be very uninterested in rims for our old trucks, I also have talked to them about wheels for my F-4 and they were of no help.

Bob Jones--Fat Fender Aficionado--
49 F-2 pickup
48 F-1 panel truck
49 8N tractor
51 F-4 flatbed
Click here to visit my web site

 

I went to Chappel tire in Union CT to talk about Split rims to the "old timer" there who runs the place. He also has 4 restored '48 to '55 Ford trucks there. He was amaized I had 6 solid rims with the '48 5-bolt pattern and questioned he extensivly where I got them. Then he showed his employees the "solid rims with Ford 5-bolt pattern!"

After the excitement was over, he brought me into the gagage and showed me a hole in the wall by the celing. Keep in mind the celing is about 20' high and the hole was in the oppisite side of the garage where we were standing, (4 bays over about 50')
"that was done by a split that blew, I know cause I was working on the rim and not using the safety cage".
The cage is a series of upside down "U's" cemented to the floor, (1/4" wall he says).
You roll the tire - rim into the center of the series of "U's", and start prying them apart.

There were many gouges on the inside walls of the "U's".
I feel Lots better I have radials and solid rims.

Another BIG benifit of using tubeless tires... If you run over a nail with tube-tires, POP! Tire is instantly flat. Tubeless is a slow leak you can detect.
Reamer

 

Hey Bob,

Are those 16"s on your F2 different than more modern ones? Are they 8-lug wheels? Are they readily available? If they can take a 7.50 tire, they might look OK.

 

Are those the wheels with the big holes in them like the ones on the bigger trucks? I wouldn't mind that kind of wheel, but I am unsure about the offset, plus I would need them to be 8-lug.

 

SgtCrump,

I didn't think my rims were split rims either until I dropped the rim on the ground and the rim collasped. I still can't figure out how to get them apart though.

I have a 86 F250 that has 16" 8 lug rims. The 16" rims will fit the front but not the rear. The rear brake drums must be larger than the front drums. I haven't measured them. I have heard of people welding the split rims together, but I don't think it will work. You can't get a 17" tire to slip over the rim. I am thinking about replacing the differential with one from an 80s F250. That way I could run 16" rims. I need measure the width to see how close it is to the original.

Still considering my options. If you find a solution, let me know.

Danny