I got my new wheels for my '78 Bronco delivered today, just before I had to leave to work. My goal was to get the largest tires on my Bronco without a lift. I'm not a huge fan of jacked up rigs, though I am considering a small lift in the future, we'll see.

I ordered them from ntwonline, this was my first purchase from them. I ordered very very late on Thursday last week, it might have actually been Friday morning, I don't remember lol.. A guy called me Friday morning, during business hours, to confirm my order and asked what it was going on since their website failed to send through all the info I filled out. He needed that info to make sure I got the right lugs and as to whether or not I wanted the white lettering facing out or in. He was very nice. So far so good, right? Right.

I was going to go with some plain black steelies, but since Dick Cepek and Mickey Thompson are giving rebates on their wheels and tires at the moment (I'm pretty sure they share the same parent company, hence the same rebates for both) I chose to look at their options through ntwonline's website. I decided, after I lot of contemplation... a lot, to go with Mickey Thompson wheels AND tires. I noticed on ntwonline's FB page that I could get an extra $20 off if I used a code off their page, so I did. The wheels I got come with center caps, but since my front hubs are manual locking hubs, I had to purchase open center caps separately. That's NOT ntwonline's deal, that's the fact that Mickey Thompson sends out these particular wheels with closed center caps only. I figured the $20 I got off for using the FB code could go towards the open centers, because MT doesn't sell them for cheap, they're roughly $15 a piece. Later on I noticed a refund (I paid with Paypal and got an email) from ntwonline for $11.28, which I thought was odd. I noticed that the $20 I got from that FB code and the refund I got, together, equaled the exact cost of the 2 open centers. I guess that guy over the phone did me a solid after we talked about the fact that I needed to pay extra to get open centers for my front wheels and he thought that was such a sour deal from MT. I thought that was pretty nice, even if it's only a relatively small amount of money. However! I now have 2 extra closed center caps in case I break some I guess! lol. Oh yeah, I bought a matching set of 5 wheels and tires that are non-directional, on purpose. I plan on doing a 5 tire rotation. I don't want to have a spare that doesn't get used and then dry rots and is useless or whatever! Plus, it'll look nice on the Mojón as a spare. I know my Bronco is ugly, but since it's so ugly I don't worry about it getting beat up offroad, which was a consideration when I bought the thing last September.

The guy I spoke to on the phone said, remember this was last Friday, he said that they'd get the tires in on Saturday and they'd have everything mounted and balanced and shipped out on Monday and that I could expect them the following Friday. Today is the following Friday, not bad. I got a text from FedEx yesterday saying that I would need an adult to sign for my delivery once it got there, which I already knew. Ntwonline will allow you to op out of that, but considering where I live, I don't want the FedEx guy to drop off 5 wheels and tires on my porch and then bounce while no one is there. I had one FedEx guy show up today at 10 to 3pm with one small box. I was like... ok. It had the center caps and lug nuts. He stated there was no room on his truck for the tires, so another guy was going to drop them off. After he left I was worried, because he had me sign for that box and I'm thinking great, I signed for it and now they're gonna stash my wheels and say they already delivered them. lol. About 25 minutes later the other dude rolls up and drops them off for me. Whew.

As you'll see, ntwonline mounted the tires to the rims and balanced them. They packaged them with cardboard over the face of the rims, so that they wouldn't get scratched during shipping. I had to screw on the center caps, which was fine and easy to do. The bag with the lug nuts came with 20 lug nuts, 20 socket head cap screws for the center caps, and an Allen wrench. How convenient! The open center caps came wrapped individually and they each had their own Allen wrench and socket head cap screws, so I have extras of those as well. I got everything mounted on the Bronco about 20 minute before I had to leave to work. I drove it over to a parking lot and gave it a good figure 8 in both directions to see how my guesstimation was on backspacing. I have no rub UNLESS I hold the steering wheel tight at full lock and then some. You know what I mean, where the power steering pump starts to whine, which you shouldn't do anyway. If I did that I got the slightest feathering of a rub which was audible (I had the window down), but you couldn't feel it. I went with an 8 inch wide wheel with 3 5/8" backspacing and a 35x12.50 tire with the narrowest section width I could from the tires available through the site to help keep things away from the radius arms, but inside the wheel well. These tires advertised a 12.2 section width on 9" wide rims. There were actually other tires I was considering over these, but their advertised section width was 13.1". So far I'm happy with my purchase and old school look. Time will tell now. I'll take more pictures when I'm not in a rush. Feel free to ask questions.

Mickey Thompson Classic III 15x8 3 5/8" backspacing wheels.
Mickey Thompson Deegan 38 35x12.50r15 tires.

 

I really like the looks of that!

 

Thanks, sir! I really kept going back and forth on whether or not I wanted an old school look or to go with a more modern looking wheel.

 

That looks great!
I hear you on picking out the rims. I went back and forth on that for a while.
Personally, I think with an old school Bronco, it needs old school rims. You might get away with the newer style if the rest of the vehicle's styling is all modernized too. But, if it's just not, it looks out of place.
Nice pick.

 

Good choice

 

Thanks. These were the other wheels I was considering before my purchase. Like I said, it was between something old school/simple or something a little more modern. I just didn't think the others, other than the black steelies, would fit well on MY Bronco.