Like a lot of us 'bigger' old truck guys I have been on the hunt for replacement wheels for my F5. After a lot of research I decided that the 19.5 motor Home wheels would be the best option. (lots of used tires can be had cheap). A couple of weeks ago I found a motor home on eBay that was 150 miles away for $500. I drove there and looked at it, the tires were ok and the wheels were right, but I could not strike a deal to buy just the wheels and the expense of moving and disposing of the Motor Home was prohibitive. Last week, I found a guy scrapping a MH with the right wheels and tires. I confirmed this with the guy before I drove the 60 miles to see them, only to find they were 6 lug wheels.
Saturday morning, I found a guy in Omaha, Nebraska that had 6 wheels with like new tires. He sent me pictures on my cell phone and they looked good. I decided to stop screwing around, jumped in my truck and drove 900 miles each way. When I arrived in Omaha Sunday AM, I found the wheels to be in great shape and the 8R19.5 tires were so close to new they still had the **** on them. It cost me $340.00 in gas and $50 for a hotel room. Combined with the $150.00 for the six wheels and tires, (YES!!!!! $25 each!) I have $540 invested or $90 for each wheel.
My search is over!!

BTW, I found a guy near Lancing, MI with 5 wheels, he wants $45 each and has them listed on the Detroit Craigslist.
I also found that Colaw RV salvage in Carthage, Mo has 7 of the 19.5 rims, but he wants $125 each for them.

 

Do you find that you forget you have done something and do it over a lot?

 

That's great news, how about some before and after pictures once you get them on the truck?

 

Well, here is a BEFORE


As for the AFTER, that will still be a few weeks as the truck is scheduled for the paint booth in 2 weeks and the new wheels won't be mounted until after the paint.

 

Hi I'm still learning about the 19.5 wheels .my truck has the 6 bolt rims..widowmakers as you call them..I have not been able to find anything near hear,,,so if you can tell me what motorhome should I be looking for ..are the 6 bolt rims the 7.25 bolt pattern?? what years should I be looking for?? and thanks for the story I gives me more info and hope that I can get this old girl on the road safely..

 

Check with Truckdog62563 to make sure, but as far as I know, the old Dodge wheels were interchangeable. That is what my wheels came off of, a dodge M400 chassis motorhome. I believe the 6 lugs were on the M600 chassis and they should fit. If that is the case, there are a lot of those out there. They were used mostly throughout the 70's.

 

Joe,

The WM do have some value. You might have been able to save yourself a little money and time if you would have taken your WMs with you when you looked at the first RV. All you really needed to take was 4. Remove the good wheels from the RV, bolt on the WMs and haul the RV to the closest junkyard. That's what I did twice but I got away lucky because the RV owners hauled the RVs away themselves, I just had to swap the wheels. I know some times it's hard to scrap an RV because there's so much non valuable materials on them like all the plastic and press board, a lot of junk yards don't want that stuff. I paid $300 for one set and about $100 in gas, and $150 for the other set and also about $100 for gas. The only negative to my deals was that both RVs were about 300 miles from my house but within 50 miles from each other. I didn't know about the $150 set until two days after I got home from getting the $300 set.

 

I have been looking at craiglist ...it's 4 am ..dammed if I can find 19.5 anything..from detroit to seattle to vancover...I would be better at doing a tranny rebuild in the dark ..then I am with this dang computer...what listing should I be looking at...I think I will go sit in my truck an polish something,,,,

 

Joe sure did score a great find here. Finding the rims alone for what he paid wouldn't have been out of line, but with near new rubber is fantastic. He did his research and jumped when he found the right deal.

Ken - Your problem is a bit bigger. Finding 19.5s for yours will take real work. Stu

 

if you don't already, use Searchtempest.com, is allows you to search all craigslist at once by distance..

Sam

 

I haven't tried Searchtempest, but I do use Craiglook.com

 

Stu, would Ken be able to use the 6 lug Dodge MH wheels?

 

Bob, I did try to swap the wheels with the first MH, but it was listed on eBay and he would not pull it off eBay for less than $1,000. He wanted to let eBay play out. In the mean time I checked out scrapyards near it and none within 50 miles would take it. In the end, it would have cost me at least $700 to buy it off eBay and then be stuck trying to haul it off. For me it became a much bigger headache than I wanted. In the end, I spent less money, got a set of wheels in better shape, much better tires, and all I had to do was load them on my truck.

 

No. Don't think so because of the dish, and the diameter of the bolt circle. Ken's wheels are singles if I recall the pics of his truck which would have between 1/2" and 3 1/2" of dish, depending on what wheels they are, while dually wheels will have plus/minus 5" of dish. The other is the bolt circle. Ken has 6 x 7.25" while many of the Dodge motorhomes are 6 x 8.75". I guess there were some with the smaller 6 lug, but I'm pretty confident they'd have been DRW instead of singles.

The most likely source, depending on the dish of Ken's wheels, are the Dodge Power Wagons of the late '50s/early '60s. If Ken could find some Budd numbers on his wheels I could look them up to be certain of the dish. I commented on one of his threads as I recall that there are Dodge PW suppliers on eBay that sometimes list these 19.5s. Stu

 

Ken - I see that you're reading this thread right now. I've been trying to figure out exactly what the offset is on your truck's wheels. Have you posted good close up pics of the wheels on any of your threads? I've forgotten. I guess I've got old timer's syndrome. If not, would you do so and maybe post a shot from approximately a 45 degree angle. I've got conflicting references. One says you should have 1/2" of dish, the other says '53/'54s had 5" of dish. It looks like the ones with 3 1/2" dish were not used on tonners, but then there's the issue of yours being Canadian, if that matters. Stu